Prices slumped Friday as the usual weekend lull in gas demandkicked in, and little severe heat was expected outside the southerntier of states. Western markets tended to see more of the largerdecreases, while a few eastern points managed to hang in there atflat leveles.

Northeast citygates tended to hold up a bit more than otherpoints because a weather forecasting service erred in predicting acool front there by the weekend, a trader said. That front was dueto arrive late Sunday, he added, but until then regional weather,while not extremely hot, would remain fairly warm.

One marketer said he “did the right thing and sold early” at theChicago citygate flat in the low $4.50s. “It’s not that I was sosmart, but I had ‘fires’ to put out and couldn’t wait around,” heelaborated. Chicago numbers were about a dime lower later, but wererecovering close to $4.50 late, he said, attributing the rebound toa paucity of sellers.

A Midcontinent source reported seeing up-down-up-down pricemovement with dime-plus ranges on several pipes.

For the second straight weekend there were no OFOs issued by thebig California LDCs. Unlike the previous Friday, however, when thesuspected possibility of OFOs helped drive California prices down,the negative price psychology was absent this time, according to alarge aggregator. “There was no real threat of weekend OFOs,” hesaid. “Prices fell hard, mainly due to dropping load as Californiacools off.”

NOVA’s tightening of its tolerance for positive daily imbalancesto 2% helped depress intra-Alberta numbers into the C$4.70s forSaturday-Monday deals, according to one marketer. However, he wasable to make a sale for Saturday and Sunday only for around C$4.80.

There was consensus among several sources that Friday’s activitywas quiet, especially compared to the wild price gyrations of theprevious three days. “If this market gets any deader, I’m going tobring a pillow to the office,” one marketer quipped.

It’s hard to make a call at this point on where July indexeswill move, an East Coast source said, because that will dependpretty much on what the screen does today through Wednesday. “Willit wind up above $4.50 or under $4.00?” he asked somewhatrhetorically. Bidweek trading is almost certain to be very slowuntil Wednesday afternoon, he continued. “People will want to getone more storage report and the futures settlement under theirbelts before committing.”

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