The cash swing market kind of “muddled around” Tuesday,unimpressed by a small screen uptick or anything else for thatmatter, according to a Midcontinent trader. Nearly all points wereflat to barely a penny or two lower. The big drop of a nickel or soat Sumas likely was due to a three-day outage of Jackson Prairiestorage operations starting today, causing Northwest to get strictabout banking gas on the system, one source said.
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TransCanada Posts Lower Earnings
Despite strong performance by TransCanada’s transmissionbusiness, like most everyone else the company took a hit toyear-end earnings due to flagging commodity prices. TransCanadareported net earnings before unusual charges of $575 million 1998,down 8% from $620 million for fiscal 1997. Net earnings afterunusual charges, for the year ended Dec. 31, 1998 were $355 millioncompared to $522 million for the year ended Dec. 31, 1997.
Price Drops Range From a Penny to About a Dime
Lacking much else in motivational factors beyond Tuesday’sfutures dive, cash prices softened Wednesday as expected.Across-the-board decreases ranged from barely a penny to as much asa dime. A Midcontinent marketer was surprised the drops weren’t anygreater than 2-5 cents in her region.