Occasionally

Predictions of moderate temperatures in most areas — except for freezing lows in much of Canada, just on the other side of the border and occasionally in sections of the Rockies — along with the additional loss of industrial load associated with a holiday weekend and fulfilled anticipation of continued storage injections prompted sizeable cash market declines across the board Sunday.

All points were up by substantial amounts Tuesday, and many saw major gains approaching or occasionally exceeding a dollar. Then cash traders, in addition to whatever early bidweek business they pursued, spent much of the rest of the day marveling at and/or being mystified by super-spikes throughout Nymex’s energy futures complex, with the natural gas screen skyrocketing by $1.334 to finish at $14.338.

After a string of high-inventory OFOs this summer, usually onweekends but occasionally on a weekday, Pacific Gas & Electriccame up with a new wrinkle Tuesday: a low-inventory OFO takingeffect today with a 3% tolerance for negative daily imbalances. Theutility projected that its linepack would remain below targetlevels through Friday.