09/05/00- Updated 04:14 PM ET

Heat wave sends natural gas higher NEW YORK  Natural gas prices rose more than 2% to a record Tuesday as a heat wave in Texas raised demand for gas-generated electricity for air conditioning. Demand for cooling last week in the south-central USA was reported to be 62% above normal. That limited the amount of gas that could be stored for winter heating. Natural gas for October delivery rose as much as 11.5 cents, or 2.4%, to $4.95 per million British thermal units on the New York Mercantile Exchange, highest intraday price in the 10 years gas futures have traded. Crude oil was also near a 10-year high Tuesday. In afternoon trading, oil was up 42 cents at $33.80 a barrel.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/mlead.htm

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), September 05, 2000

Answers

Well, I see oil is now flirting with $34 the barrel. I wonder how high it will have to go before the finge pointing starts in earnest.

-- QMan (qman@c-zone.net), September 06, 2000.

Oil be damned. That will be bad enough. But, natural gas, now there's a catastrophe building if ever I saw one.

I receive a monthly royalty check from a mineral rigts holding in Colorado, from Amaco. This past month's payment was DOUBLE the size on any other I'd received over the past 7 years the gas well has been in operation. This says it all as far as I'm concerned.

-- JackW (jpayne@webtv.net), September 06, 2000.