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It was only fitting yesterday that the futures market groundlower amid lack of strong fundamentals. After all, Monday was theconclusion of just the second July in the last 100 years in whichNew York City did not reach 90 degrees Fahrenheit. Even WashingtonD.C., which is known for its mostly intolerable summer heat andhumidity was limited to just one day of 90-plus mercury during themonth.

Those who had expected cash bullishness to continue Wednesday,based on the July futures contract’s move to previously unknownheights on the previous day, were in for a big disappointment.Wednesday’s screen achieved most of its drastic downturn while cashwas still trading. And while hot weather remained fairly severe onthe West Coast, it cooled off considerably in the Northeast.

Natural gas prices are going to jump; the only question is — how high? Calling the rising natural gas demand “phenomenal” both now and into the foreseeable future, Simmons and & Co. International vice president David Pursell said prices are trending upward, and predicted that natural gas is poised to gain a “good proportion” of the demand group.

After having a customer-specific OFO in effect for Wednesdayonly, Pacific Gas & Electric issued a new customer-specific OFOfor Saturday and was projecting above-target linepack Saturdaythrough today. An unplanned outage prompted Transwestern toallocate San Juan Lateral volumes for the Intraday 1 cycle Friday,affecting 18 points.

Iroquois extended through Friday an open season for up to 10,000Dth/d of winter-only (December through March) FT from theWaddington receipt point to the Brookfield delivery point. Theservice would commence Dec. 1, 2000 and end April 1, 2003. Iroquoisnoted that Sithe New Boston has right of first refusal for 10,000Dth/d. Call Robin Almond at (203) 925-7274 for information.

Reliant will limit West of Amber capacity to 360,000 Dth/d forWednesday only due to maintenance on the #3 compressor at AmberJunction Station (Grady County, OK).

Much like the beginning of February, the March aftermarket gotoff to a strong start Tuesday with swing numbers for March 1 onlytrading up from apparent index levels. Unlike last month,first-of-March prices also were generally at least a nickel or moreabove end-of-February levels.

Pacific Gas & Electric lifted a high-inventory OFO that hadbeen in effect for Friday only. All cold weather-related pipelineOFOs issued in the last two weeks remained in effect going into theweekend.

Sempra Energy of San Diego, CA, will be the only game in town for gas distribution in Nova Scotia for at least 25 years now that it has the provincial government’s permission to build and operate the largest new North American gas distribution system of the last 30 years.