GRI, formerly the Gas Research Institute, filed itsfourth-to-last annual research, development and demonstrationprogram application last week with FERC, requesting a budget of $70million and approval of its 2001-2005 RD&D Plan.

The budget is down from the $98 million requested for 2000 andthe $132 million last year, as stipulated in GRI’s seven-yeartransition plan. GRI’s budget will be phased out entirely in threeyears when it becomes a voluntarily funded organization. This yearGRI anticipates receiving $26.5 million in co-funding from industryand government sources for 2001. Co-funding from industry andgovernment sources totaled $50.7 million in 1999.

“It makes it challenging certainly for us to continue to workhard to develop other sources of revenue,” said GRI spokesman JoeHilyard. “We’re on the learning curve in regard to the businessdevelopment side. We’re working hard at it. I can’t provide anyfigures, but I wish we were a little bit further up the curve thanwe are. We will continue to get out there and try to convincecustomers to come forward with voluntary money to take advantage ofthe services and products we can develop specifically for them, asopposed to a cooperative research program with the results beingshared.”

GRI told FERC in its filing that 25 new GRI products, processes,techniques, tools and key research information items entered themarketplace last year, “further verifying the FERC’s earlierconclusion that ‘GRI has been an effective force in bringingtechnological improvements to the gas industry.'” In addition tothe 25 new products and procedures last year, 12 enhanced versionsof previously commercialized items were placed into use. FromJanuary 1995 to December 1999, the GRI program has led to thecommercialization of 133 items whose widely distributed benefitshave been quantified. Its program this year is composed of 26projects that are continuations of projects started in previousyears.

GRI said that the benefit-to-cost ratio — evaluating the valueof the GRI program to natural gas consumers — was 9.4-to-1between 1995 and 1999. This ratio is based on an analysis of actualand projected sales from GRI technology in commercial use over thefive-year period, and the total cost of all GRI activities for thesame period.

GRI recently announced plans to merge with the Institute of GasTechnology (IGT), a leading energy research organization, toeliminate overlapping dues for GRI and IGT members and to bring thesynergies of the two groups together. A name for the combinedorganization has not yet been selected. The new research groupprobably will have a much wider focus than just natural gasresearch and development (R&D). Its 550 members will hail fromthe gas, oil and electric industries in North America and otherforeign countries, as well as from other related fields.

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