Easily

In a trading session that won’t soon be forgotten by bull norbear yesterday, natural gas futures marched easily higher as earlylong accumulation by funds morphed into a buying free-for-all whencommercials and locals entered the ring. After setting its dailylow during the first hour of trading at $5.80, it was up, up andaway for December, as it notched a new all-time commodity high at$6.025. The prompt month finished 31.8 cents higher on the day at$6.016. Meanwhile, soon to be spot month January was no slouch,gaining 29.6 cents to close at $6.002.

“North to Alaska, go north, the rush is on.” The old song byJohnny Horton about the Alaskan gold rush could easily be rewrittentoday — but the attraction would be the huge reserves of naturalgas there. This past week, the rush began to drum up private andpublic support to build a gas pipeline that would transport themassive untapped reserves from the Alaskan North Slope and theCanadian Mackenzie Delta to the Lower 48.

After a lower open at the bell yesterday, the futures marketmoved higher and easily recouped Tuesday’s losses. The Julycontract finished up 6.7 cents and in doing so registered anoutside up-day on the daily charts.

“It was like a bad dream,” was one marketer’s summation ofWednesday’s 4-cent decline that was quickly recouped by yesterday’s4.1-cent advance. Another trader was a little more specific,attributing the downward blip to funds rolling positions from Mayto June. But regardless of the rationale, Wednesday’s lowersettle-the first one in the last seven sessions-looked like theGrand Canyon nestled among the Alps.

A 30 Tcf market is “widely anticipated and economicallypossible” by 2010, but it will not be achieved easily as allsegments of the natural gas industry will face considerablefinancial and infrastructure challenges to help supply and servethat demand, said a study issued by the INGAA Foundation Inc. onMonday.