The cash market resumed its climb Thursday, buoyed by a risingHenry Hub futures contract, a tightening supply situation,spreading cold weather and air conditioning load from Texas throughthe Southeast. A “lean” storage report Wednesday afternoon added tobullish sentiment, a marketer said.

Broad-based gains were scattered between a nickel and a dime.The surge left only a few Pacific Northwest and Rockies quotesstill under the $2 level. A cold front that had chilled the Rockieson Wednesday was moving into the Upper Midwest Thursday, resultingin upticks of close to a dime at many Midcontinent field andMidwest citygate points.

Tightness of supplies in the Gulf Coast seems to be getting morepronounced each day, said a Houston marketer, noting he is amongthe shippers running a “significant” negative imbalance on Transco(see Transportation Notes). That tightness is exacerbated byNortheast electric utilities continuing to switch from fuel oil togas as crude futures remain near $18/bbl, he said. In addition, themarketer added, the MW outage of nuclear plants nationwide is 18%greater this spring than last. (FirstEnergy’s Davis-Besse plant inOak Harbor, OH, is the latest nuke outage, beginning a 25-daymaintenance period today.)

Among the reasons people are noticing more supply shortages atLouisiana points lately is that Texas and Louisiana prices havereached approximate parity, one source noted. Some traders that hadbeen bringing Texas gas across the Sabine River to sell atLouisiana points while Texas prices were lower, have now turned tomaking their purchases in Louisiana instead, he said.

CIG-DJ Basin was the rare market making no new gains Thursday,probably because its run-up of about 20 cents the previous day hadeasily topped a mostly flat market.

A Texas source regarded the AGA storage injection figure of 2Bcf as “very bullish,” but doesn’t think those feelings will lastlong. He looks for a “big” injection report next week.

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