Cash

With freezing temperatures essentially a no-show throughout theU.S., cash prices continued to decline in most markets Wednesday,with the biggest declines occurring in the supply-engorged Rockies.However, except for western points most of the softness was mild,and some Northeast citygates registered moderate upticks.

Much like futures, swing price movement came to a nearstandstill Tuesday. Small declines of mostly less than 4 centstended to outweigh the few small scattered gains, but the overalleffect was pancake-like. Few areas were any more than moderatelychilly, and even the Upper Plains, where most Arctic cold frontsstart spreading into the U.S., was seeing temperatures in the 70s.Forecasters reported an absolutely featureless Atlantic stormoutlook.

It was a mostly softer swing market Monday, but with very littleconsistency in price movement. New quotes ranged from down around20 cents at Northeast citygates, which tended to see last week’sbiggest increases, to 2-5 cents higher in California, where alow-inventory OFO by PG&E helped boost demand. Other points inbetween were flat to down more than a nickel, with most of thedrops being in the vicinity of a nickel.

Following the lead of an essentially flat screen during most ofthe cash trading period, the spot market leveled off Wednesday,with small upticks outweighing the few small declines. An Arcticcold front was moving eastward toward the Midwest and eventually tothe Northeast, making citygates tend to rise a bit more thanproduction-area points.

Houston-based El Paso Energy Corp. plans to acquire Crystal GasStorage Inc. of Shreveport, LA, for $57 cash per Crystal share in adeal worth $224.6 million.

Florida Gas Transmission (FGT) last week extended its lead over other pipes that are flocking to Florida to cash in on the gas-fired power generation market when FERC staff issued draft environmental approval for its Phase IV mainline expansion.

Colder weather in northern market areas didn’t do much to raisecash prices, but it kept demand high enough to provide some pricesupport. Most eastern points were flat to slightly higher. In theWest, Rockies pipes emulated markets to the East with generallyflat performances, but California points fell by about a nickel ormore after PG&E announced it was lifting its two-daylow-linepack OFO.

Very mild softness was the dominant feature of the cash marketTuesday with a few points turning in basically flat showings.Others were off by up to a nickel. Prices started off near theirlow points but were able to rebound a few cents later in thetrading cycle, sources in the Gulf Coast and Rockies/Southwestsaid.

Despite stronger cash prices and the surprise formation of a newtropical system in the Gulf of Mexico over the weekend, natural gasfutures prices tumbled lower yesterday as traders continued toliquidate long positions. The October contract was the hardest hit,slipping 8.9 cents to finish at $2.519. With many Nymex localsobserving the Jewish Holiday Yom Kippur, estimated volume was heldto an extremely light 53,174 contracts.