Torrid

There did not seem to be a lot of weather support except in much of the torrid desert Southwest, but mostly small price increases continued at a majority of points for a second day Wednesday. The cash market did have some positive guidance from the previous day’s 7.1-cent increase by prompt-month futures.

Nearly all points rallied Monday due to a tropical storm in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) and torrid heat levels continuing across nearly all of the southern half of the U.S. The modest 3.3-cent gain Friday by August futures and the return of industrial load from its weekend downturn were other factors in the overall bullishness.

Calpine Corp. continued its torrid growth last week byannouncing intentions to build two new power plants in theSoutheast. The 1,500 MW of production generated by the newlyproposed plants is expected to be available in 2003. Calpine saidit expects to invest $805 million for the two plants.