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Incremental prices closed out the month of January once againdefying bearish demand factors. In deals done Friday, most averagesvaried little from their Thursday positions. And though traderswere separating weekend business into Saturday/Sunday andMonday-only deals due to the shift from January to February, theyreported little appreciable difference in pricing between the twotime periods.

Once again it’s ‘Westward Ho,’ as Questar Pipeline looks to beefup its southern mainline and connect with Williams West (Kern RiverGas Transmission) for deliveries to California.

SaskEnergy and Enbridge Consumers Gas last week dropped out ofthe competition for a distribution franchise in Nova Scotia once itbecame clear the provincial government would allow industrialcustomers to apply for direct connections to the Maritimes andNortheast Pipeline. Their departure leaves only Sempra Atlantic Gasand Maritimes NRG competing for province-wide distributionfranchise rights and seven small municipal agencies competing forsite-specific franchises.

SaskEnergy and Enbridge Consumers Gas last week dropped out ofthe competition for a distribution franchise in Nova Scotia once itbecame clear the provincial government would allow industrialcustomers to apply for direct connections to the Maritimes andNortheast Pipeline. Their departure leaves only Sempra Atlantic Gasand Maritimes NRG competing for province-wide distributionfranchise rights and seven small municipal agencies competing forsite-specific franchises.

Bearish fundamental factors once again took over at the New YorkMercantile Exchange Tuesday, sending the natural gas futures marketspiraling lower and nearly erasing gains registered over the priorthree trading sessions. Even cash prices, which continued to spikedramatically higher yesterday, did not influence the futuresmarket. After January opened below key support, the market neverlooked back as prices fell 18.8 cents to $1.913 at the closeTuesday. And just like that, the futures-cash basis has shrunk froma whopping 97 cents to a tight 14 cents over the past two days.

Plentiful amounts of gas in underground storage and relativelywarm temperatures once again had bears licking their chopsyesterday. But after two attempts failed to push the market lower,short-covering activity propelled the market higher during the lasthour of trading. December posted a 5.2-cent gain to $2.149 Tuesday,and in doing so, became the first contract since March to post again on its last trading day.

Once again Tuesday the cash market tended to be stronger to theWest and weaker to the East, although neither region was a model ofconsistency. The West had a couple of flat points, while a few inthe East were flat to slightly higher.

Once again Monday flat to higher Western numbers were in starkcontrast to Eastern prices that mostly fell by around a nickel,although there were a few pockets of resistance in the East thatsaw flat to slightly higher pricing. Trading was predictablysubdued because of the simultaneous Thanksgiving Day in Canada andColumbus Day in the U.S., although few in the gas industry otherthan utilities took off for Columbus Day.

Alliance CEO Dennis Cornelson reiterated yesterday he’s not theslightest bit concerned about upstream gas supply problems puttinga damper on Alliance throughput once the the pipeline isconstructed. “Thinking about that very issue over the years, Ithink that it’s clear that with the higher gas prices that arebeing realized and the relatively low prices for oil at this timethat there will be real focus on natural gas exploration anddevelopment over the next several years.