The Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) officially takes over the weekly storage report from the American Gas Association (AGA) in May. However, the EIA already is fielding “a lot of calls and a lot of interest” in what the new report will look like, and the agency is now field testing the system to ensure no future problems, said William Trapmann, team leader of natural gas analysis within EIA’s Office of Oil & Gas.

Trapmann, speaking Wednesday at Ziff Energy Group’s “Gas Storage 2002” conference, said quality control systems are being tweaked to ensure that data correction is minimal.

“We’ve had quite a lot of concern about quality control,” he said. Because the answers are subjective, “we’re in the process of setting up edit checks for reasonableness. If data is questionable, it will be followed up. We don’t have a history yet to draw from, and even though there are only going to be 50-60 respondents, we don’t want to contact each one each week [if there are problems]. It will be manageable,” however, and any discrepancies will be thoroughly reviewed.

EIA also is taking steps to ensure there is no manipulation of the futures market. Concerns grew about the potential for manipulation following an erroneous storage report issued by the AGA last August (see NGI, Aug. 27, 2001). Then, in October, the AGA shocked the market when it announced it would stop publishing the weekly report this year (see NGI, Oct. 15, 2001).

“We are taking steps to avoid any problems,” Trapmann said. “The questions people will have is a concern with the government as well. It is taken seriously and there are avenues we can address to avoid market manipulation.”

Once AGA announced it would stop its weekly reports, Trapmann said EIA began working with AGA in November and then two months ago, it submitted its clearance package to the Office of Management and Budget. OMB gave clearance for EIA to begin its publication, and now it is undergoing system development and testing. Trapmann said operational testing on the weekly report is set for April, and the initial release and operation begins in May.

Although he offered few specifics, Trapmann said EIA’s report will differ from AGA’s in the amount of information it offers. EIA only intends to collect working gas volumes only — AGA collected more data on what had changed in the market from the week previously. The day on which the data will be released also remains unresolved, Trapmann said.

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