Uphill

The cash market continued this week’s roller-coaster ride, returning to a fairly steep uphill track for most locations in recording gains virtually across the board Wednesday. Thursday lows getting to freezing or occasionally lower were the main driver of the bullishness, getting a small extra contribution from Tuesday’s screen advance of 3.8 cents.

Prices stayed on an uphill path in most cases Wednesday, but the rate of increase was appreciably lower than the large gains during the first two days of the week and included several losses. Along with the previous day’s loss of 8.4 cents by December futures, cash gas appeared to be starting to acknowledge the moderating weather forecasts for the latter half of this week.

Getting a little extra boost from a rebounding expiration-day screen, the uphill climb for swing prices got steeper Tuesday as what is touted as the coldest weather of what has been so far a decidedly mild winter season continued to expand into new market areas. Most gains ranged from just a couple of pennies to about 15 cents, but anticipation of a radical change in temperatures today had Northeast citygates registering larger increases, led by spikes of nearly half a dollar at Transco’s two Zone 6 pools.

The cash market remained on its uphill trek at all points Wednesday except for the OFO-devastated PG&E citygate, but price increases continued to get smaller than those earlier in the week. A substantial majority of upticks were between 10 and 20 cents.

Legislation to make it easier to build electric power plants in Iowa finally inched its way through the Iowa House last week on a 54-44 vote, but it faces more battles in an uncompromising Senate and opposition from Gov. Tom Vilsack. Supporters argue that the bill (House File 577) would prevent a shortfall in generating capacity, which is expected by 2006.

Legislation to make it easier to build electric power plants in Iowa finally inched its way through the Iowa House this week on a 54-44 vote, but it faces more battles in an uncompromising Senate and opposition from Gov. Tom Vilsack. Supporters argue that the bill (House File 577) would prevent a shortfall in generating capacity, which is expected by 2006.

Apparently the cash market was just taking a price-consolidationbreather for the weekend because it returned to a steep upwardtrack Monday. Only Florida citygates failed to rise by more than 30cents, and the highly volatile California and Pacific Northwestmarkets led the price charge with gains of 60 cents or more.

A target of May 1 has been set to complete a review, and a pollsuggests the majority is receptive to change, but gas hunters stillface an uphill effort to remove a moratorium from a highly-ratedexploration target offshore of Canada’s West Coast.

A target of May 1 has been set to complete a review, and a pollsuggests the majority is receptive to change, but gas hunters stillface an uphill effort to remove a moratorium from a highly-ratedexploration target offshore of Canada’s West Coast.