The trading adage buy the rumour sell the fact appears to be true when looking at Winter 06. The last couple of weeks we have a significant shift in Winter 06 from low £60's to high £60's with Winter 06 baseload on Friday trading at £69.50. The buying has been on a greater level of uncertainity with further reports coming out on Rough with a worst case scenario of Rough returning on June 1st. This effectively means that Rough is having an effect on Winter 3 months ahead of the start. Clearly players would like to use the Summer to fill rough up and this would perhaps suggest that Q3 06 should be a greater bid (but it hasn't been) and that the system should be pretty able to cope with gas demands during Winter 06. So what is really driving Winter 06 up. The fear factor that if Rough is out for longer, if gas demand through the shoulder months increases, and the world becomes more unstable with regard to oil prices etc. In otherwords rumour and gossip.

Perhaps when more facts are released and players accept that oil and gas prices have been squeezed in 05 and that players are wiser in 06 that the season may well fall, but at this stage that does not look likely.