Surge

Buoyed by follow-through buying on the heels of Wednesday’s late price surge and in reaction to weather forecasts (both for hot temps next week as well as the formation of Tropical Depression 2), natural gas futures shuffled higher for the third session in a row Thursday as short-covering promoted prices to new week-and-a-half highs. At the closing bell, the August contract was knocking on the door of some important technical levels, up 8.6 cents at $3.428.

Houston-based Enron Corp., hit in the past few months with accusations of overcharging in California and sagging stock performance, wiped the slate clean Thursday with its second quarter earnings release, announcing profit was up 40% over a year ago, boosted by surging electricity and gas sales in North America and Europe. The company said it sold almost twice as much power in North America and five times as much in Europe in the quarter.

Higher prices, pure and simple, are leading the way for record earnings by several North American independents in the first quarter, including Burlington Resources Inc., which saw its earnings more than quadruple. Occidental Petroleum Corp. also set records for the quarter, reporting earnings up 90%, which it said were propelled by natural gas demand in California.

Salomon Smith Barney (SSB) analysts calculate that theunprecedented price surge this winter drove a significant amountmore demand out of the market than previously envisioned. With therecent decline in prices, however, some of that lost demand isreturning to the market.

The cash market made another big surge Monday as traders debatedwhether storage worries or new weather forecasts carried the mostweight in the renewed bullishness. Gains tended to range from abouta quarter to more than a dollar in Transco’s Zone 6 pools in theNortheast. Some production area points were exceeding January indexlevels.

Following on the heels of yet another early morning Accesstrading buying surge, natural gas futures pressed higher againMonday as short-term weather forecasts corroborated medium rangeoutlooks that last week called for an invasion of Arctic air notseen in the United States in several years.

Spot gas prices quickly rebounded from the long holidayweekend’s overall softness and made large gains across the boardTuesday. Rocky Mountains/San Juan points led the way with gainsranging from about 20 cents to a little more than 60 cents.

It’s clearer now than ever before that significant additionalcapacity is needed to the Northeast, said Millennium PipelineChairman David Pentzien.

A winter storm sweeping through the South, along with freezingtemperatures expected to last through the weekend in much of theU.S. from the Rockies eastward, resulted in rising prices at nearlyall points Friday.