Except for moderate declines at Northern California points, the market remained bullish for cash traders Tuesday. Rising heat levels in much of the East, Midcontinent/Midwest and Southwest combined with another morning of stronger futures to push cash higher by double digits at nearly all points, sources said.

An eastern marketer predicted this week’s price rally will be fairly short-lived. Northeast temperatures may be hitting the 90s at midweek, but will be cooling down again by the weekend, he said. He also found it hard to figure why prices were still rising when so many people expect another storage injection report in the vicinity of 100 Bcf from AGA today.

But a Midcontinent trader opined that apparently there was enough cooling load building up to counteract the bearish psychology of another big injection figure. His company was also a bit more bullish about the AGA report. “We’re expecting something in the 90s [Bcf],” he said.

Several markets saw prices going up in late activity. A western trader who did San Juan-Blanco deals early in the $2.60s and late in the $2.90s said if he’d waited a half hour later he could have sold Blanco gas above $3. That was verified by other quotes that went as high as the low $3.30s. He wasn’t sure why the late upticks occurred. “There’s the Bondad turbine maintenance [by El Paso], but that only affects 80 MMcf/d of San Juan gas,” he said.

California border-SoCalGas registered the day’s biggest rise of about 80 cents, but Malin and PG&E citygates fell slightly. One supplier said she was sensing a lot of relief from California buyers that prices, “while still high, are not sky-high like they used to be.”

An indicator of rising air conditioning load in the Southeast came from Florida Gas Transmission, which warned shippers Tuesday of a potential Overage Alert Day “due to significant market area demand.”

Intra-Alberta prices got as high as the low C$5.20s in trading that largely tracked screen movement, as usual, a Calgary source said.

Communications with Houston traders continued to be restricted by residual problems from the area’s recent flooding. “Some trading counterparties in Houston can call out, but we have trouble calling them,” said a source based in the West. A Calgary marketer said he had no luck getting through to Houston companies in several attempts Tuesday. Yet another trader said that between the flood-related attrition of Houston traders and the distraction of preparations for the U.S. Open pro golf tournament in Tulsa, “the market was deader than dog-doo” for her.

Some evidence of just how fast this year’s storage injections have proceeded already is provided by Northwest Pipeline. As of Sunday Jackson Prairie inventory was less than 200 MMcf shy of 17 Bcf, leaving only a little more than 2 Bcf in further injections to fill the facility’s capacity of 19.032 Bcf, the Northwest bulletin board said Tuesday. However, because of chilly Pacific Northwest temperatures, Jackson Prairie actually registered a small net withdrawal Monday, the pipeline said.

Southern California border prices for gas going into PG&E have averaged more than $5 below deliveries into the SoCalGas system at times this year. However, a marketer reported that basis for both markets is approximately equal at plus $1.55-65 for the upcoming winter (November 2001 through March 2002). The reason, he said, “is because of the perception that the PG&E system might be short gas this winter, as supply that usually finds its way into California from the Rockies and from the Pacfic Northwest will stay home to serve weather-related demand in those markets.”

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