June prices were still on the rise for a California buyerTuesday, but a producer said he was seeing slightly lower Chicagocitygates.

Saying he had made his first Southern California border purchasefor June last Wednesday morning at $4.01, prior to the AGA storagereport and futures spike, the buyer said prices had jumped to $4.20that afternoon, but that didn’t prepare him for having to pay allthrough the $4.60s Tuesday. “It was a bloodbath,” he said. “Peopleare just amazed at how this market has taken off.”

It doesn’t look like there is any relief in sight anytime soon,the buyer went on. He said the EnronOnline electronic tradingservice Tuesday afternoon had posted a bid-ask spread of $4.735-765for June 1 swing trading at the border.

Calling bidweek numbers “absolutely incredible,” a producer saidhe felt sorry for industrial end-users. “They certainly didn’tbudget this much for gas in 2000,” he said.

In slow last-of-May swing business, prices ranged from flat toa little more than a dime higher at most eastern points. The West,where numbers had been weakest Friday due to weekend OFOs byCalifornia’s two biggest distributors, was rebounding in a big wayin the absence of OFOs. Gains were 20 cents or more at Malin andintra-Alberta and in the Rockies and Southwest basins, but theywere far outdistanced by advances of more than half a dollar at thePG&E citygate and Southern California border.

A marketer reported seeing “decent” air conditioning load bothin California and east-of-California markets. California is gettingwarmer again, he said, but nothing like the severe heat wave ofearly last week. Meanwhile, temperatures were exceeding 100 degreesin parts of the desert Southwest, he added.

Numbers were dropping drastically in Tennessee’s 500 Leg poolfor one Gulf Coast producer, who made an early sale at $4.20 buthad to accept $4.02 later. He suspected people “playing cash-outgames” of pushing prices lower.

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