Surprisingly

Somewhat surprisingly, most points outside of California and the Rockies/Southwest basins were able Wednesday to pull out of the price tailspin that had dominated this week’s market. Flat to mildly higher or lower numbers were prevalent in most areas. However, California continued to plunge in triple-digit amounts except for border-SoCalGas quotes, which fell only about 30 cents. The Rockies and Southwest basins generally were down from about a nickel to 20 cents.

Not surprisingly, the cash market was still falling going into the weekend. Generally Friday’s losses were mild at a dime or less, though, and few points fell much more than a dime other than San Juan Basin, Malin and the California border into PG&E.

The surprisingly small storage withdrawal last week of 69 Bcf,as reported late Wednesday by the American Gas Association, tookthe blame for a 12.1-cent tumble in the April Henry Hub futurescontract yesterday. Most observers were expecting about 110 Bcf tobe withdrawn, so the AGA report was enough to trigger along-awaited correction. Heavy selling sent the front-month Nymexgas futures contract cascading down throughout the day to a low of$1.810 before closing at $1.820.

Last week’s trading wound up wound up with a reversal ofregional price trends. Whereas in the first couple of days of theweek Western points were recording gains while the stagnant Easternmarket was mostly flat to a little lower, the West was falling hardFriday but the East was flat to 2-3 cents higher. The Easternfirmness came as a surprise to some traders who had expected mildweather and the usual slump in weekend load to yield modest pricedeclines.