Buildup

Prices finally found this week’s buildup of heating load — mostly in the East — to be sufficient to realize gains at nearly all points Wednesday. The January futures advance of 1.3 cents Tuesday provided a smidgen of extra support to Wednesday’s cash market.

Friday’s start of a buildup to a near-nationwide heat wave during the weekend led to a strong launch of the August aftermarket. Prices advanced at nearly all points Thursday. The firmness was enhanced by the previous day’s 11.8-cent futures gain.

The midweek buildup of heat in many sections of the U.S. and Eastern Canada was able to overcome further prior-day screen softness in spurring rebounds in most of the cash market Thursday. However, it’s highly unlikely that gains will continue Friday after a very bearish storage report led to a steep plunge in August natural gas amid another meltdown day in Nymex’s energy futures complex.

An analysis of the Bush administration’s energy plan points up 17 different provisions that would have benefited Enron Corp., Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) said Wednesday in asking “once again” for “specific information about the White House contacts with Enron and other energy companies.”

As some sources had suspected, the recent buildup in air conditioning load wasn’t strong enough to sustain this week’s bull market in the wake of another big storage injection report and associated screen softness. Only small to moderate Rockies/San Juan increases went against the grain of overall market declines Thursday that were mostly between a dime and 30 cents but got as big as nearly $1.50 for California border deliveries into SoCalGas.

Expected rises in gas demand, a relatively slow storage buildup,strong crude oil prices and fears of a repeat of last summer’s heatwave in key gas-consuming areas will pave the way for unprecedentednatural gas prices for the rest of the year, the Energy InformationAdministration (EIA) said in its short-term energy outlook forJune.

Expected rises in gas demand, a relatively slow storage buildup,strong crude oil prices and fears of a repeat of last summer’s heatwave in key gas-consuming areas will pave the way for unprecedentednatural gas prices for the rest of the year, the Energy InformationAdministration (EIA) said in its short-term energy outlook forJune.