Softer

May prices remained firm in morning business Thursday but weregetting softer in the afternoon after the June futures screenstarted retreating from a dalliance around the $2.40 level, a GulfCoast producer reported. However, a marketer saw little movementeither way for May numbers in western markets. And another tradersaid intra-Alberta prices “are getting wild,” reporting themstraddling the C$2.80 level Thursday.

It didn’t surprise any traders when the cash market was theteensiest bit softer Wednesday. What did prompt some expressions ofamazement was that prices held up as strongly as they did. Betweena falling futures screen and overall weaker demand fundamentals, itseemed that prices should have dropped at least a nickel or more,one source said. Instead, few points were down more than a coupleof pennies, and some registered flat showings. Northern NaturalGas, serving a market area with near-winter-like chill, evenmanaged small gains.

The East-West divergence in price tendencies was repeated againTuesday in a slightly different way. While Monday’s overall uptickshad been most pronounced in the West, eastern markets retreated byabout a nickel Tuesday as Western markets managed mostly flat tobarely-off-a-penny performances.

All the ingredients were right for the futures market to spirallower yesterday-a softer cash market, continued bearish weatherforecasts, and an abundance of ready-to-expire March $1.65 and$1.70 put options. But for some reason, all of those factors werenot enough to inspire a sustained round of selling, leaving theMarch contract to chop to either side of unchanged before finishingwith a 0.6-cent gain to $1.71.

A Houston marketer invoked the wisdom of baseball great YogiBerra to describe Tuesday’s cash market: “It’s deja vu all overagain.” In other words, it was like most of February’s previoustrading activity-generally flat with tight ranges. However, thoughthere was little if any change at any point, whatever changes didoccur were slightly to the downside. They were limited to 1-3 centsin all cases.

The overall tone of the cash market remained flat Thursday, buta growing number of points were recording tiny decreases. Thetouches of softness came even as an eastbound cold front reachedthe nation’s midsection, reminding regions that had beenexperiencing record seasonal warmth recently that winter isn’tquite over yet. One source speculated that prices may be finallystarting to crack under the strain of having maintained theirpositions during a long period of no fundamentals support. Even thearrival of some for-real weather fundamentals may not be enough toprovide support, he said.

The cash market was mostly flat to a few cents softer Friday,surprising more than one source who had expected bigger declinesbased on the usual slump in weekend demand. Apparently a new winterstorm revving up in the Midwest had traders nervous about going tooshort. Also, some well freeze-offs were reported affecting allpipes in Oklahoma to small degrees. A Tulsa marketer said mostpeople were going home early after icy roads caused the schools toclose.

The cash market for the concluding days of November hadsomething in common with the famed cliff divers of Acapulco:breathtakingly steep plunges. “You better hope you sold your gasearly” Wednesday because there was almost no demand for the longholiday weekend, a marketer said, “and you just can’t cook thoseThanksgiving turkeys long enough [in gas ovens] to boost demand.”

Prices continued to weaken at nearly all points Tuesday in boththe incremental and October bidweek markets. Offshore supplies wereslow in returning from hurricane-related outages, but tradersseemed to discount that factor and to depend on abundant gaselsewhere to take up the slack. They also observed that weather andstorage fundamentals remain weak.