Except for smaller price increases, cash trading Tuesday wasalmost a repeat of Monday’s. Small upticks of about a nickel orless dominated in the East and were mostly associated with thescreen’s late run-up Monday, sources said. Slightly larger gains atmost western points got extra support from cooling load that wasconcentrated in the hot east-of-California markets of the desertSouthwest.

The light activity pattern also carried over from Monday,according to a Gulf Coast producer. “We saw mostly a status quomarket that was almost featureless,” he said. The producer thoughtthe rise of about a dollar in crude oil futures “might have somelong-term psychological impact on gas, but essentially its [impact]is zilch short-term.”

The budding May aftermarket “feels long” at this point to aMidwestern buyer. However, there were a number of “closet” buyersemerging in the form of utilities making purchases for theirrateable storage injections, she said. “But it’s really only thesecond day of the month, so it’s still hard to gauge the extent oflong or short [supply] positions.”

Western price hikes continue to be mostly power-driven, said aCalgary trader. However, he noted that a lot of Monday’s screenrun-up occurred after his firm had finished cash business for theday, so there was some “residual” bullish effect carrying overTuesday, even when gas futures failed to move much further.

Intra-Alberta prices managed to edge just over C$4 in somequotes Tuesday, reported a producer. But he wasn’t sure just howgood that was for his company “because we happened to be buyingmore than we were selling.”

One producer, after offering an outlandishly huge guess at thisafternoon’s AGA storage figure as a joke, then added, “I have noidea at all.” But a marketer said he expected a report close to theyear-ago number of 34 Bcf in injections.

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