Spike

The October aftermarket opened on a heavily bullish note at eastern, southwestern and California points Monday with cash prices shooting up between about a quarter and a little more than 50 cents. However, Rockies numbers were flat to down as much as 20 cents, one source said. Lili officially became a hurricane — the fourth of the 2002 Atlantic season — Monday morning and was staying on a track similar to the one that Isidore followed before it caused widespread production outages in the Gulf of Mexico last week.

Tulsa-based Oneok Inc. went where no man has gone before in second quarter 2002 earnings, marking a 56% increase for its marketing and trading operations segment, which, combined with solid returns in distribution, led to a gain in net income of 64% over the second quarter last year.

Tulsa, OK-based Oneok Inc. went where no man has gone before in second quarter 2002 earnings, marking a 56% increase for its marketing and trading operations segment, which, combined with solid returns in distribution, led to a gain in net income of 64% over the second quarter last year.

Getting a huge prod from Nymex, the bulls stampeded in the cash market Thursday. Gains of about 20 cents or more were common in all regions. The larger increases on either side of 30 cents were in the Rockies/Pacific Northwest, home to much of what little remains of the recent frigid spell.

In a typical display of its ability to shrug off undeniably bullish information, natural gas futures turned lower Wednesday afternoon following the announcement that a whopping 156 Bcf was pulled from underground storage facilities last week. After surpassing its Jan. 17 high of $2.38 to reach a new 5-week high at $2.41, the March contract plummeted 16.5 cents in 25 minutes to finish at $2.245, down 6 cents for the session.

The January aftermarket started out strongly relative to end-of-December numbers, but without straying too far from apparent first-of-month index levels. Nearly all of the swing movement ranged from flat to about 20 cents higher, but gains tended to get much bigger at Northeast citygates, topped off by an advance of more than a dollar at the Transco Zone 6-NYC pool.

Weekend swing prices skyrocketed as high as $5.50 late Friday morning at Transco’s Zone 6-New York City pool. But as startling as that quote was, it wasn’t representative of the overall market in which price averages ranged from 35 cents higher (Zone 6-NYC) to 20 cents lower (PG&E citygate). Flat to slightly higher numbers predominated, and most of the softness came at western points.

Amid a stunningly bullish one-two combination of a tropical depression and a record low storage refill for the month of August, natural gas futures soared higher to test one-month highs yesterday as traders covered shorts initiated on recent moves below the $3.00 mark. The September contract rode the buying wave for a 37.4-cent advance, breaking through several levels of resistance on its way to a $3.468 closing price.

Despite having considerably lighter air conditioning load than last week, the cash market ranged from flat to about a dime higher at nearly all points Monday. Most increases were fairly small, but Malin achieved one in the mid teens, while the day’s champion gainer of about 60 cents due a maintenance-related constraint was Cheyenne Hub. CIG recorded the only significant loss of more than a dime.