Instances

Most of the cash market was softer Friday, but it had a few flat to moderately higher points in the mix. A prior-day screen increase and some instances of rising cooling load were outweighed by a significant weekend cooldown in the Northeast and the drop in industrial load that typically accompanies a weekend. Also, excess supply issues were accumulating in the West, where many of the largest losses were recorded.

A few instances of flat to moderately higher pricing showed up in the West, but an overwhelming majority of the cash market continued to probe lower levels Tuesday as traders returned from Christmas holiday. Widespread mild weather and the extension of natural gas futures plunges into their third day Tuesday weighed heavily on cash quotes.

Cash prices continued to rise overall Tuesday, registering dollar-plus increases in several instances, but the upticks were smaller than Monday’s spikes at almost all points. Gulf Coast pipelines with offshore connections reported shut-ins prompted by Hurricane Katrina starting to decline, but Minerals Management Service (MMS) said its count of shut-in Gulf of Mexico (GOM) gas production had risen to 8.798 Bcf/d Tuesday, or about 88% of normal output. GOM oil outages went up to 1.43 million bbl/d, or a whopping 95% of regular GOM supply, MMS said.

Cash prices saw a few instances of flat to moderately higher numbers Tuesday amid an overall slippage that ranged from 2-3 cents to about 30 cents. The sell-off in the futures market slowed Tuesday with the near-month contract dropping only 6.6 cents to $7.586. Quotes were generally only a few pennies lower in the Northeast with slightly larger drops in the Midcontinent, Midwest and Gulf Coast regions, but some western points slid more than 20 cents.

With a few instances of flat to modestly higher numbers sprinkled here and there, most of the cash market recorded small losses Friday in a muted reversal of the advances that had thoroughly dominated trading earlier last week. A large majority of the drops were in single digits. Northeast citygates, having much greater heights from which to fall, tended to see all of the larger declines ranging from a little more than a dime to as much as $1.30 or so.

A couple of instances of flat numbers in the Northeast were conspicuous amid an overall softening Thursday. Weak fundamental weather support and falling energy futures Wednesday and Thursday prompted losses ranging from a little less than a nickel to 15 cents or so, with most declines weighing in at a dime or more.

FERC Commissioner Nora Brownell last Thursday said if her agency uncovers instances where a power company engages in retribution against another company that has taken a beef over interconnection, for example, FERC will offer a “swift response” to such retaliation.

Although the cash market’s downslide looked like it wasflattening out Wednesday in most instances except for California,sources tended to regard it as merely a resting place before moresoftness sets in. A majority of points ranged from moderatelysofter to a few cents higher, with the largest gains being realizedin the chilling Northeast. The Southern California border plungedand the PG&E citygate fell by about 40 cents.

FERC last week proposed changes that would lead in certaininstances to a less restrictive policy for off-the-recordcommunications between the agency and those outside of it,particularly with respect to staff communications while conductingenvironmental investigations.