In the immortal words of baseball great Yogi Berra: “It’s déjàvu all over again!” A week after a smaller-than-expected storageinjection sent gas futures soaring by about a quarter, theoccurrence was repeated Wednesday afternoon. And just as thatprompted cash numbers to do their own skyrocket act last Thursday,so did sources predict similar fireworks in this morning’s action.

Prices for today’s flow were moderately firmer Wednesday, withnearly all points ranging from flat to either side of a dimehigher. The only significant weakness came at the SouthernCalifornia border, where quotes fell about a dime in response tofurther easing of the state’s huge electric generation load fromthe heat wave experienced earlier this week. Malin fell slightly,and the Rockies constituted most of the flat points as severe heatin the east-of-California markets was not enough to negate thelessened Golden State demand.

Besides the flexing of muscle by natural gas futures, crude oiland heating oil futures also experienced super-strong days. Thecrude contract for July (June’s has already closed out) jumped bymore than a dollar to nearly $30/bbl.

AGA said 55 Bcf was injected into storage last week. That fitpretty well with one marketer’s Tuesday prediction of 50-55 Bcf (seeDaily GPI, May 24). However, he wasclearly in a minority as most of the market had expected a biggerrefill, and the report served only to increase the year-on-yearstorage deficit even further.

“I thought gas was supposed to be cheaper in the summer,” saidone marketer harkening back to past years when that was true. Well,don’t look for prices to get much cheaper if at all, commentedanother source. “We’re just not going to be able to catch up onstorage [injections] at all,” he said. He recalled hearing talk inearly May that a $4 screen would be hit this summer. “We’re stillalmost a month shy of the official start of summer and we’ve hit it[$4] already.”

Another thing to disconcert gas buyers is that the officialbeginning of the 2000 hurricane season is a week from today.There’s no need to wait that long, though, as Hurricane Aletta hasalready formed. However, it is unlikely to threaten Gulf of Mexicoproduction as it reportedly was in the Pacific Ocean Wednesday morethan 400 miles west of Acapulco, Mexico.

The June bidweek saw a slow start, which is certainly not ararity. “We can’t make the transportation work at this point,” saida Gulf Coast/Northeast trader, “and besides, it seems like nobodywants to deal yet.”

A western marketer reported doing June deals Wednesday at$3.65-66 for San Juan-Blanco and for $4.02-07 at the SouthernCalifornia border. However, that was before the storage report cameout and the subsequent futures spike, he said. “I don’t know wherethe market has moved since then, but would have to guess it washigher.”

Basis was certainly weakening after the screen shot up, saidanother source. He pegged Blanco at minus 25 in the morning butsaid it had widened to minus 32-29 that afternoon. A third traderreported trading El Paso-Permian at minus 13-12 and Waha at minus11-10.

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