Quotes

A Southern California border spike of about 80 cents Friday,with a few quotes peaking in the lower $6.70s, was by far the mostattention-grabbing feature of a weekend market that was mostly flatto moderately higher but included a bit of backsliding at San JuanBasin/Rockies points.

Swing quotes for the first five days of July saw little changefrom end-of-June numbers in most cases and were stronger at somepoints. However, the July aftermarket did begin at levels downconsiderably from indexes.

Cash quotes for the last day of June tumbled Thursday,influenced by futures weakness in the morning and from the previousday and also by a general dearth of weather-related demand outsidethe West.

Proctor & Gamble has posted requests for commodity quotes(RFQs) for about 28.7 Bcf over the next year starting July 1 on anew e-commerce website, Energygateway.com, which lays claim tobeing the biggest and best transaction site for industrial energycustomers, utilities and producers. But you better get your bids insoon; the deadline is June 15.

Cash quotes continued to rise Wednesday in both swing deals fortoday and in what little bit of bidweek business remained to bedone. However, doubt was growing about how much longer theunprecedented recent price strength can be maintained after futuresreacted negatively to a storage report for the first time in morethan a month.

Cash quotes again moved higher Monday but mostly in smallamounts of less than a nickel, reacting to new strength in the gas,crude oil and heating oil futures contracts and getting some extrasupport from colder weather in major northern market areas.

The bloom was off the Northeast price rose Friday as weekendcitygate quotes began plunging back to earth. The non-Northeastmarket ranged from flat to a little more than a nickel higher.

With the futures screen “crashing and burning,” as a producerdescribed it, November bidweek numbers also took a tumble Thursday.However, because much of the futures plunge occurred after swingtrading for today’s flow had been completed, incremental pricesgenerally were down only a nickel or so.

Some Gulf Coast quotes were topping the $3 level Thursday ascash prices resumed climbing after Wednesday’s leveling-off period.Increases ranged from about a nickel in California to more than 15cents at New England citygates and on CNG in Appalachia. A risingfutures screen provided moderate support for cash, but thespreading of colder weather was the chief cause of the price gains,sources said. However, numbers were retreating in several marketsin late deals. A Gulf Coast producer was able to get only $2.90 ina very late Henry Hub trade after the point had been trading in thehigh $2.90s for most of the morning.