Averted

Prices that were flat to about 15 cents higher at several western points averted a clean sweep of cash market softness Monday. Overall, traders responded to prospects for spring-like weather with little heating load in most areas this week, along with Friday’s futures dip of 15.6 cents, by pushing prices anywhere from a couple of pennies to about 45 cents lower at a solid majority of points. Many of the largest losses were concentrated at Midwest and Northeast citygates.

Upticks by as much as about 70 cents at a few Rockies locations averted a clean sweep of declines in the cash market Friday. All other points recorded losses in bowing to the dearth of heating load in most areas. A dime-plus fall by January futures a day earlier and the usual weekend slump of industrial demand further weakened cash quotes.

Prices softened averted across the board in Thursday’s cash market. Negative influences were largely unchanged: widespread moderate weather, futures weakness, nearly full storage and the lack of a hurricane threat to offshore production with the end of the peak period (August-September) in Atlantic hurricane seasons rapidly approaching.

Most points recorded single-digit declines Wednesday, with a few others falling by up to nearly 20 cents. A clean sweep of softening was averted by a few scattered points that ranged from flat to a little more than a dime higher.

Only a few flat to barely higher western points averted a clean sweep of softening in cash prices Thursday. A small prior-day screen decline joined already-negative weather and storage influences in putting downward pressure on the market.

Only an advance of less than a dime by El Paso’s Bondad pool in San Juan Basin averted an across-the-board sweep of falling prices Friday. Quotes were pressured lower by dwindling heating load in the East, the previous day’s screen drop of 6 cents and the slump in industrial demand that typically accompanies a weekend trading period.

“If economic activity does not rebound and we have a warm winter, perhaps a price spike can be averted one more year, thanks to the storage overhang,” Peoples Energy Chairman Thomas Patrick predicted, but the overall trend is toward greater demand and declining supply.

“If economic activity does not rebound and we have a warm winter, perhaps a price spike can be averted one more year, thanks to the storage overhang,” Peoples Energy Chairman Thomas Patrick predicted, but the overall trend is toward greater demand and declining supply.

As a baseball strike was averted last Friday, the San Francisco Giants were busy in another New York City venue — federal bankruptcy court — asking the judge in the Enron Corp. Chapter 11 proceedings to force the fallen Houston energy marketing machine to remove its tilted “E” logo from the baseball team’s Pacific Bell Park.