The cash market used Friday’s futures advance, along withexpectations of hotter weather this week, as a springboard toachieve across-the-board gains in double digits Monday.

Prices increases tended to range to either side of 20 cents inthe East but were much larger in the West. PG&E citygates,which had been greatly depressed last week by four straight days ofutility-issued OFOs, rose nearly a dollar to around $4.50, but werestill in the unusual position of trading about a quarter below theSouthern California border. Border prices were rising steadilythroughout the morning, according to one marketer.

Even after Monday’s big increases, swing gas is still pricedwell below July indexes.

A Houston-based marketer was surprised not to see as muchutility load as he would have expected coming out of a weekend”with all this heat across the South.” A couple of electricutilities in the South that he normally sells gas in hot weathertold him they didn’t need any more for now, thank you very much.

It’s hard to tell at this point whether prices will keep risingmuch more this week, said the Northeastern trader for a largeaggregator. “I suppose a lot of it will depend on the AGA’s storagereport” Wednesday afternoon, he said.

Several sources remarked on how quietly this week’s marketbegan. There seem to be a lot of people out on vacations, one said,and likely quite a few others are visiting with their tradingpartners in Calgary during this week’s Stampede rodeo festivities.

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