Plentiful amounts of gas in underground storage and relativelywarm temperatures once again had bears licking their chopsyesterday. But after two attempts failed to push the market lower,short-covering activity propelled the market higher during the lasthour of trading. December posted a 5.2-cent gain to $2.149 Tuesday,and in doing so, became the first contract since March to post again on its last trading day.
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Missing Gas Fails to Avert September, October Declines
Even with massive amounts of offshore gas remaining off-lineMonday, the gas markets for both late September and October bidweekchose to pay more attention to bearish fundamentals elsewhere.Except for rises of a nickel or more for deliveries in theNortheast market area, which depends mainly on Gulf Coast supplies,incremental September numbers were falling by a dime or more atmost points.
Multiple Forces Squeeze New York Basis
The recent tightening of Henry Hub-New York basis can beattributed to a number of factors: the large amounts of capacitybeing turned back to the pipelines, high inventory levels,competitive residual fuel oil prices and new liquefied natural gasprojects, according to a prominent energy trader.