The American Gas Association sent out a confusing market signalyesterday, reporting 45 Bcf of withdrawals for the week ending Nov.13 but actually showing more gas in storage than was reported inlast week’s survey. The peculiar changes, the association said,resulted from 58 Bcf increase in the full level of working gas inthe country. The AGA said 20 of the more than 40 storage companiessurveyed reported increases in working gas capacity. The newestimated full level of working gas is 3,248 Bcf, which includes a29 Bcf increase in working gas capacity in the Producing Region, a21 Bcf rise in the Consuming Region East and an 8 Bcf increase inthe Consuming Region West.

“The ceiling changes. The percent full of our sample stays thesame. And when you adjust the ceiling it adjusts the numbers andcreates a temporary discontinuity, but that’s a quirk of ourmethodology,” said AGA’s Chris McGill.

The changes created a new estimated full level for this year’sinjection season and a new five-year working gas peak. The AGAchanged the level of working gas for the week ending Nov. 6 to3,127 Bcf from what was originally reported as 3,070 Bcf. The newlevel shows working gas this year reached the highest level sincethe AGA started its survey in December 1993.

McGill downplayed the significance of the change. “As you knowwe periodically readjust our universe of what it is we extrapolateour sample to, how we define storage. People may add facilities,they may delete facilities, they may improve facilities and overtime we get to a point where we need to adjust how we view ouruniverse and this is our time to do it. [The changes have] beenbuilding over time but we don’t adjust our universe of storagefrivolously, and we don’t do it every week. We do it at one time.This is may be the fourth or fifth time we’ve done this in thehistory of our report.” It is the largest adjustment that has beenmade, he said.

“To me it’s no more significant than if a company added afacility. A number of companies have invested dollars in theirfacilities to improve the deliverability from them [this year];that might be part of it. Maybe the traditional view of the linebetween working gas and base gas has shifted a little bit for someof the companies. Maybe they’re finding that they can just get alittle more in their facilities than they have before.”

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