Lifts

Discounting recent short-term predictions for warmer weather,Salomon Smith Barney added another 75 cents to its gas priceforecast for this year. The prediction now totals $5/MMBtu at thewellhead or about $5.15 at the Henry Hub, but SSB still fears itmay be too low given the storage and gas production situation.

After trading within a wide, 58-cent trading range over the past10 trading days, November futures could barely eke out a nickelrange during the regular open-outcry session Tuesday, as traderselected to remain mostly on the sidelines ahead of fresh weatherand storage news expected this afternoon. The prompt month finisheddown 1.6 cents at $5.134 in a session that saw a scant 48,674contracts change hands.

Flat pricing dominated much of the swing market Monday, butquotes ranged to about a nickel higher in the Midcontinent/Midwestand Southwest/California regions. Colder Midwest weather and a bitof chill on the West Coast built up some extra demand in thosemarkets, traders said.

After piercing key resistance at $2.78 shortly before noon(EST), natural gas futures kicked into overdrive yesterday astraders discounted warm weather forecasts and added to their longpositions.

With little in the way of fresh news, natural gas futures limpedmostly sideways yesterday as cautious summer bulls matched upnearly perfectly with March bears. In fact, the only notablefeature in Thursday’s session was a rash of market-on-close buying,which firmed prices at the end. The March contract advanced 1.9cents to finish at $2.549 on its penultimate trading day.

Fresh off a two-day, 24-cent price drop, natural gas futurestraded unchanged for most of the session Tuesday with light buyingand selling by trade accounts matching up nearly perfectly. Bymid-afternoon, however, it looked as if bears would make it atrifecta, as they successfully etched new lows for the Januarycontract down to $2.21. But after remaining on the sidelines formost of the day, speculators were seen as aggressive buyers intothe final bell. That enabled the January contract to finish on apositive note, up 4.7-cents to $2.271.

Buoyed by cash market buying interest, natural gas futuresshuffled higher Friday as traders covered shorts ahead of theweekend. After opening at $2.755, the November contract climbedbriskly to its $2.82 high shortly after 11 am EDT. Once the initialbuying push subsided, the spot month moved mostly sideways for therest of the session to settle at $2.793, a 4.9-cent gain for theday.

Fueled by follow-through buying on the heels of Monday advances,the futures market ambled higher yesterday as traders weighed theimpact of bullish news expected to be released this afternoon. TheSeptember contract finished up to 2.3 cents at $2.598. Impressiveadvances were also seen in the out months with the October,November and December contracts notching similar gains.

Marking its initial promotion to capture some of the residentialgas market in Georgia, Southeastern States Energy, Inc. (SSE)announced a partnership with PowerTrust.com, an Internet-basedpower services company, to offer customers the ability to sign withSSE through the PowerTrust.com web site. Although the GeorgiaPublic Service Commission (GPSC) will decide market share for thestate’s suppliers on Aug. 11, Beth Perry Sewell, president of SSE,said there is still time to be successful in the Georgia market.