Seemed

What had seemed earlier to be a rather innocuous tropical wave, doing little more than providing lots of rain for the Florida peninsula, emerged as Tropical Storm Barry around midday Thursday and suddenly posed a very real threat to Gulf of Mexico production. Although most prices continued to soften Thursday, sources look for Barry to generate a rally in today’s trading for the weekend. The screen pointed the way upward for cash with a dime-plus gain Thursday.

On the same day that he was handed the reins of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) said that bipartisan legislation directing FERC to set cost-based rates to ensure just and reasonable wholesale energy prices in California could get consideration from the panel within the next couple of weeks. Separately, newly-minted Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD) made it clear earlier this week that he stands ready to support such legislation if FERC falls short of meeting its just and reasonable obligations.

Much of the North American market seemed to be joining theCanadians in still being on holiday Tuesday. In very subduedactivity scattered points (mostly in the California/PacificNorthwest region) registered upticks, but most ranged from mildlysofter to down as much as about $3.50 at the Chicago citygate.

Although fundamentals seemed to be ignored in Tuesday’s mostlysofter market, traders apparently got a wake-up call Wednesday tothe fact that temperatures remained near or below freezing innearly all areas outside the desert Southwest and were expected tostay that way through the end of 2000. The result was largeWednesday advances at nearly all pricing points, with a few gainsexceeding a dollar.

It had seemed that Wednesday afternoon’s large screen uptickfollowing the storage report might be the tonic needed by alistless cash market to regain its previous strength Thursday.Instead, a humongous Nymex downturn and fresh forecasts thatweather next week might not be as cold as anticipated combined tosend most cash prices lower by a dime or so. Gains were rare andsmall.

It had seemed Wednesday that strong energy futures and an anemic storage build would keep cash prices rising at least until the weekend. But an abrupt screen about-face Thursday combined with moderating temperatures in key southern and northern market areas and sent prices lower, generally down between about a nickel and a little more than a dime.

Most of the market “seemed to take a breather” Friday, as oneproducer perceived it, going quietly into the weekend flat tomildly higher. The points experiencing significant declines ofabout a nickel or greater were scattered They included San JuanBasin, Stanfield and Iroquois Zone 2 and were topped by a drop of alittle more than a dime at Malin.

What had seemed like a mildly softer early aftermarket in swingdeals done Tuesday got much weaker Wednesday. Influenced greatly bya falling screen but also by a continuing lack of positivefundamentals, nearly all points were down a dime or more. NorthernCalifornia was a rare bastion of relative market strength in theU.S. Malin and the PG&E citygate dropped only about a nickel asPG&E repeated last week’s unusual action of issuing alow-inventory OFO on a summer weekday.

After tumbling 8.1 cents lower in Tuesday’s sell-off, the marketseemed to take a breather yesterday with neither bulls nor bearsable to influence price movemnet in their favor. The June contractwas limited to a tight 4-cent trading range, slipping just 0.8cents to finish at $2.254. Estimated volume was moderate, with67,082 contracts changing hands.