Dow Hydrocarbons and Resources Inc. has renewed its contract touse Planalytic’s Weathernomics Gas Buyer to help manage natural gascosts. The Web-based tool is used for financial risk management tobuy and sell natural gas, suggesting specific buying actions toreduce risk presented by the weather in gas prices for up to oneyear into the future.

Dow Hydrocarbons has been using the tool since June 2000,according to Dow’s Myk R. Fenstermacher. Planalytics, based inWayne, PA, reports that clients using its Gas Buyer for the March2000 through February 2001 natural gas contracts paid an average of$3.75/MM Btu, about $1.15 less than the average Nymex month-endsettlement price of $4.90 — a savings of 23.5%.

The Gas Buyer does not attempt to forecast natural gas prices;instead it predicts the turning points and direction of gas pricechanges, using the knowledge to determine the most cost-effectivemethod to purchase gas on any given day.

The company will host a webcast on its system at 3:30 p.m. onThursday. To register for the event, go towww.planalytics.com/energy.

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