Thanks Jon, I was going to ask if we could get the data set. In our group of EE's and controls systems engineers, I am probably the least talented, but I see the bigger picture and I'll explain the knock on effects. That is, why is this information is important across multiple industries.

Natural Gas electrical generation (i.e. best Scotch to wash dishes) has become the baseline cost for many electric utilities. When forecasting electrical rates for long term planning - at least on the West coast - natural gas rates are projected to provide the reference pricing. The LTAP's (Long Term Acquistion Plan) I've seen lately use the EIA projections; and we all know the track record on either USGS or EIA prognostications!

I believe the real deterministic near-term and longer term trends lie in the empirical data sets you have presented. Therefore, I got the ball rolling this morning after reading your report to bring in our control systems and signal systems engineers to produce the equations I mentioned earlier. Producing a multiple regression equation should be the simpler of the two, while the transfer function and control block diagrams will take some trial and error. Furthermore, the inputs to the transfer function may require Convolution transforms to adapt the "signal" waveforms into coherent functions.

But, in the end I would expect we will have a set of equations that can be utilized to correlate cause and effect. I like the NG market because it is mostly homogeneous, mostly closed, and decoupled enough to allow independent variables to respond to non-correlated signals. On the other hand, I don't think this analysis practice would be applicable to the oil market for all the opposite reasons.

Will email in a day or two once we get a handle on the scope of our analysis and outputs. Again thanks, I've found your reports very informative, and this is probably because you are outside the industry and can look at it like it is a black block (Boy, that's leading right into the Entropic Principle - whew!).