Rising

Wednesday’s novelty of a homogenous market that had pricesrising in all regions failed to carry over into Thursday. Insteadtrading tendencies reverted to the previous pattern: generallysofter in the East and flat to a little higher at most Westernpoints. The biggest drops of about a dime occurred on theAppalachian pipes.

If pipeline and LDC rates continue their upward climb, the”inevitable result” will be a sharp decline in producers’ wellheadrevenues and a subsequent “significant loss” of natural gassupplies, an official of a major producer group said Monday.

Hot weather in the producing states of Louisiana and Texas,along with the futures screen’s rising example, set the tone forcash price hikes of 2-3 cents to almost a dime Monday. One tradersaid supplies seemed a bit tight in the Gulf Coast and Midcontinentfor some reason, allowing that it might have been southern coolingdemand soaking up available gas.

Despite Tuesday’s overall price losses, the rising trend astrading progressed carried over into Wednesday and resulted inmoderate to strong rebounds. Increases mostly were in the range of5-10 cents and tended to cancel out the Tuesday declines.

Some traders saw little change in April post-weekend pricingMonday, but others reported small to moderate increases. Thatsurprised a few sources because of hearing talk last week that manybuyers planned to wait until Monday to make their purchases,expecting lower prices after futures had expired.