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To: Roebear who wrote (88622)	3/13/2001 6:20:06 PM
From: The Ox	Respond to of 95453

AGA Preview: US natural gas inventories seen down 75-90 bcf New York, March 13 (BridgeNews) - The American Gas Association is expected to report Wednesday that U.S. natural gas stocks fell by 75 billion to 90 billion cubic feet in the week ended Friday, though one estimate was as high as 105 bcf, according to a BridgeNews survey of natural gas brokers and analysts conducted Tuesday. The AGA report will be released at 1400 ET Wednesday. * * * Last week, the AGA reported gas withdrawals at 73 bcf, putting estimated total U.S. natural gas in storage at 786 bcf, down 371 bcf from stocks of 1,157 bcf for the same period in 2000. According to analyst Jim Ritterbusch, the AGA report "seems to be implying that industrial demand (for gas) has not picked up to where people thought it should be." With gas prices fairly high in historical terms, a slowing economy might mean that prices need to come down about 10% in order to stimulate increased industrial demand, Ritterbusch said. Because industrial demand has not been seen up, Ritterbusch said that that market is "discounting a storage trough of 650 bcf" by early April. According Aaron Kildow, a natural gas analyst with Prudential Securities, relatively cheap heating oil means that a number of industries that can switch to natural gas alternatives are doing so. Kildow said an AGA storage withdrawal of 75 bcf would be "fairly neutral." Most observers agreed that saying what impact an AGA storage release would have--bearish or bullish--would be difficult given the choppy nature of the market right now. "The market is looking fairly weak right now, with more of its momentum to the down side," Kildow said. The average withdrawal for this period over the last five years is 78.8 bcf and the year-ago draw was 31 bcf. One trader, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that little gas would be taken from stocks in the Western consuming region or in the producing region, and last week's cold weather in the Northeast wasn't cold enough to spur much additional gas use in the East. According to last week's AGA report, the eastern region accounted for the largest withdrawals, pulling 54 bcf from storage, or 22% of capacity. That compared with the East's withdrawal of 24 bcf during the same period in 2000. Eastern region storage levels are now at an estimated 402 bcf, according to the AGA. The western consuming region drew 13 bcf, or 29% of capacity, from storage, compared with a draw of 9 in 2000, while the U.S. producing region withdrew 6 bcf, or 25% of capacity, compared with 4 bcf withdrawn during the same period the previous year. End