The Natural Gas Supply Association (NGSA) and the CanadianAssociation of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) will sponsor a majorconference later this month to review the status of North Americangas supply and demand.

The conference, which will be held Jan. 28th at the CanadianEmbassy in Washington, specifically will take a look at industryforecasts for a 30 Tcf gas market by 2010 and projected demand.

The keynote speaker will be Ralph E. Goodale, Canada’s Ministerof Natural Resources. His U.S. counterpart, Energy Secretary BillRichardson, also has been invited to attend. This will mark thefirst time the two will meet, said NGSA President Nicholas J. Bush.He expects Richardson and Goodale will use the opportunity to setup a meeting to discuss the natural gas supply-demand issue.

Other speakers include Rep. Ron Packard (R-CA), chairman of thesubcommittee on energy and water development, and Jay Hakes,administrator of the Energy Information Administration. FERCChairman James J. Hoecker has been invited.

“Given what’s going on in today’s oil markets as well as in U.S.gas and oil, this will be a very good conference. It will be verytimely. And it’s very much…related to what’s going on as well inthe FERC [NOPR and NOI] proceedings,” Bush said.

The study looked at customers in 10 commercial segments:schools, hospitals, office buildings, warehousing, grocery stores,hotels, dry cleaning, restaurants, retail, and light manufacturing.

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