The overall cash market drifted lower Friday, with quotesranging from essentially flat into Northwest for both domestic andCanadian gas to nearly 15 cents lower at the PG&E citygate. Thegeneral softness primarily was a function of the usual weekenddropoff in gas load, sources said.

Prices started off lower but picked up near the end of morningtrading by following the screen higher, a Gulf Coast producer said.A Midcontinent source was expecting numbers to go even lower butsaid they “hung in there” due to futures firmness. She thought gasfutures traders remained relatively bullish because of the strengthof crude oil futures, which have remained comfortably above $21/bblduring August. “In fact, the whole energy complex is strong,” whichhelps to support each individual product, she added.

A Northeast buyer found prices on either side of the weekendhigher than those for the usual Saturday-Monday period. He waspurchasing intra-day gas for Friday in Texas Eastern’s M-3 pool inthe low to mid $3.00s and Monday-only M-3 packages in the low$3.00s, compared to regular weekend deals at just under $3. It’snecessary to pay a premium when asking someone to break up weekendflows, he said in explaining the higher Monday-only quotes.

The fact that Pacific Gas & Electric had a high-inventoryOFO in effect going into the weekend while neighboring SouthernCalifornia Gas did not caused a flip-flop from normal basis. TheAugust PG&E citygate index of $2.67 was 9 cents above theSouthern California border average. But one aggregator was tradingthe citygate in the low $2.50s Friday while its border purchasesranged from the mid to high $2.50s.

Several sources agreed Friday’s trading was quiet, but that wasespecially true in the West as many people were just returning fromthe Colorado Oil & Gas Association conference, a marketer said.

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