Demand has increased for gas that's used for cooling houses, something that's typical this time of year, although temperatures have soared beyond normal in western provinces. "Obviously we've seen some record temperatures in various parts of the country in the last couple of days, and that's clearly driving part of the move in the natural gas space," said Mike Archibald, vice-president and portfolio manager with AGF Investments Inc. The August natural gas contract was up 3.7 cents at US$3.63 per mmBTU while the August crude contract was up seven cents at US$72.98 per barrel. Both natural gas and crude oil prices were up sharply before pulling back toward closing.