Flatness

The great majority of the cash market elected to take it easyTuesday, yielding a lot of zeros, ones and twos in the averageprice change column. The only significant price drops of a dime ormore occurred at Northeast citygates, where temperatures abovefreezing were starting to reappear at some points. Transco Zone 6and Texas Eastern M-3 remain the only markets with a considerablecushion of more than a dime from January indexes.

Amid a sea of minor changes elsewhere, deliveries into theChicago and Northeast were conspicuous Wednesday with gains ofaround 15-20 cents or more. A market-area OFO issued by NGPL (seeTransportation Notes) seemed rather innocuous at first by beinglimited to 6 a.m to noon each day, but a marketer said that set offa scramble by traders to adjust their Chicago balancing situations.It also pushed up NGPL Iowa-Illinois Line quotes by more than 20cents. And quotes for Northern Natural-Ventura, where the pipelinehas had a System Overrun Limitation in effect for market zonessince before Christmas (see Daily GPI, Dec. 24), soared by asimilar amount.

Prices began the week with a mixed performance Monday. Flatnesswas dominant at most points, with small drops outweighing smallgains at others. Mild weather throughout much of the nation lent nofundamental support to gas demand. However, sources saw a goodchance for at least modest increases today based on Monday’sfutures uptick.

The screen’s drop Tuesday didn’t make much of an impression onthe cash market, which was flat at the majority of points. TheMidcontinent tended to be a little weaker than the average asMidwest citygates were down by almost a nickel after a cold fronthad cooled off the region considerably.

The cash market continued to muddle around with essentially nodirection for a second straight day Friday, leaving weekend numbersmostly unchanged. The few drops of about a nickel occurred atWestern points-intra-Alberta, Stanfield, Malin and SouthernCalifornia border-and chiefly resulted from the lifting of supplyand/or transportation constraints that allowed more gas back intothe market.

Lacking any impetus from fundamentals or a sedate futuresscreen, the vast majority of points settled down for a level ridein a quiet market Wednesday. The few increases of any size occurredin the Rockies and California and were attributed to supplyconstraints and continuing heavy air conditioning load.

Coming off two days marked by sizable price swings and robustvolume, buyers and sellers were almost evenly matched Tuesdaymaking for a rare sub-5-cent price range. The prompt month closedthe day down 1.3 cents to settle at $1.952.

Flatness and mild softness dominated the late-April cash marketMonday. Enough heating load was being generated in the Northeastand Midwest to keep citygates and a number of field pointsessentially unchanged from Friday. Most of the downticks of 2-5cents again occurred in the West, where mild temperatures wereprevailing.

Flatness dominated at nearly all market points Thursday, andseveral sources anticipate a softening mode today due both to thescreen’s decline Thursday and the usual slump of weekend usage.Also, a marketer said cooling weekend temperatures in Texas shoulddampen some of the recent air conditioning load in the state.