Lower

With a blatant clue like the screen’s Monday drop of just over15 cents, which no cash point came close to matching that day, nogas traders had to switch occupations to rocket scientist topredict swing prices would be softening further Tuesday. Except foressential flatness in the Rockies and at Canada’s intra-Alberta andSumas points, most of Tuesday’s declines were within the range of4-9 cents.

The futures market gave an early “head fake” — pointing lowerat the open — but support held and the market picked up momentumthroughout the trading session Monday. The December contract spikeddramatically higher near the close, registering a 11.2 cent advanceto $2.387. Despite the large trading range, volume was a little onthe light side with only 50,263 contracts changing hands.

Williams Chairman Keith E. Bailey said Tuesday the company’sunaudited third quarter financials, which are expected to bereleased today, will include $70 million, or 10 cents per share, inpre-tax charges and write-downs.

In what a few sources described as some of the quietest tradingthey had seen in quite a while, cash quotes fell anywhere from 2cents to a dime or so at Eastern points Monday. In contrast,numbers were generally flat to slightly higher for the Rockies,Southwest basins, California and intra-Alberta.

Spirit Energy 76, Unocal Corp.’s Lower 48 exploration andproduction unit reached a definitive agreement to sellsubstantially all of its oil and gas assets in Michigan to NewstarEnergy USA Inc. and Omimex Energy Inc. for about $37.25 million incash and 670,000 shares of stock in Newstar Resources, the parentcompany of Newstar Energy.

Fresh off Wednesday’s advance the futures market looked poisedto continue higher Thursday as early buying prompted the market upat the open. However, a 25-cent gain in two days was more than eventhe greediest of bulls could handle, and the market reacted bytrending down. That left the November contract with a 1.9 cent lossto settle at $2.414 at the final bell.

No news was good news on Monday – at least to the bears – as themarket continued to take back gains registered last week in frantichurricane-related trading. That prompted the October contract todrop 7.3 cents to settle at $2.187 yesterday as traders searchedfor any indication that Hurricane Georges (pronounced ZHORZH) wouldaffect natural gas interests in the Gulf of Mexico.

Certainly not BP’s Browne, who offered a litany of E&ampPtechnology advances. “In real terms, oil prices today are more than40% below where they stood a decade ago and comparable to levelslast seen before the Yom Kippur War 25 years ago. The reason we’reall still in business is that average finding, development andlifting costs have all fallen – on average by almost a third inreal terms over the last decade.”

The futures market came under heavy selling pressure earlyThursday, adding to losses that began in the Wednesday eveningAccess session. However, the October contract was unable to broachsupport at $2.075, and buying enabled the prompt month to recoverslightly in the afternoon. October ended the day down 10.3 cents at$2.138.