The new features of the database release include:

• Improved modeling to distinguish the types of natural gas produced from conventional and unconventional formations
• Updated supply curves in the Gulf of Mexico reflecting a drilling moratorium and redirection of drilling activity elsewhere

• Up-to-date representations of pipeline proposals for moving increased Marcellus and Haynesville shale gas production

• Infrastructure expansions required to handle a large volume of production of shale gas in British Columbia
• Detailed modeling of three alternative proposals for bringing Alaskan gas to market
• Well-calibrated modeling of winter price and basis spikes in the Northeast

New features of the software include:

• A major change in the way GPCM represents Suppliers, simplifying them to a list of types

• A conversion routine which allows you to convert databases from the previous way for handling suppliers to the new one

• An exciting new GDS map:　 Market Points, Prices, Basis, and Spreads
• GDS Layers:　 enabling you to display census regions, NERC regions, NERC sub regions, supply basins or shale plays
• A new feature in calibration which enables one to calibrate price and basis spikes against historical data
• Enhancement of the Calibration Summary Report to display calibration accuracy for imports, exports, and fuel use
• A conversion routine to make a RES/COM database out of an LDC database
• Improved modeling of reported imbalances of supply and demand
• A "Recent Databases" list to assist you to quickly get to databases to which you have recently been attached

• We've improved the scenario execution time by improving the routines that apply exchange rates to Canadian prices.
• We've improved the functionality and compatibility of the Demand Case builder, specifically with importing Demand Drivers into very old databases that never had Demand Drivers before.
• We’ve improved the Calibration routines by adding additional data checks that prevent errors.
• We’ve updated the Suppliers and Recipients reports accessible from the Customer Receipt Summary, Customer Receipt Detail, Supplier Deliveries Summary and Supplier Deliveries Detail reports.  
• We've fixed a bug in the Database Compare that was causing a failure and prompting users to contact RBAC.
• We’ve fixed a bug in GDS that prevented you from drilling down to the same supply slide twice.
• We’ve fixed a bug in the Supplier Deliveries Summary graph that caused the initial values to be too high.

• We’ve enhanced the Supplier table and form: there is now has a new field called Sup_Type.  This gives greater accuracy in reporting and will allow you to aggregate your suppliers in more ways for the Supply and LNG reports.  To start with, these fields have been populated as LNG or NG. 
• The Supply Case Builder now generates better first year prices for LNG Terminals starting in the future.  We decided to handle LNG differently because of its special nature of being an import from other countries - the simplicity of it is that we are setting the PMed equal to WTI/OGPR for that year; PLow and PHigh adjust accoding to your elasticities. 
• In the Demand Case Builder, Margin_Inputs is now calculated directly from the data. The Margin Inputs table is used to convert the citygate price to a delivered price (by sector and Month of Year).  Two different delivered prices are then used to get a high and low estimate for demand using the demand regression equations.  These two demand levels are then assigned to the citygate prices in the demand functions used in GPCM. 
• In to the Calibration Manager, we now use Customer Shares with Target Demand to get a better Demand Calibration. Previously we calibrated to the state and sector level, but not to the customer level within that state and sector.  With this enhancement, our calibration is much better down to the customer level.
• GPCM now has better integrity control on the Target Flow Zones tables and forms. We now use several indexes, relations and code routines to help protect the Target Flow data integrity.  For example, if you delete a Zone in the Location form, you will be informed that you need to re-attach another Flow or Reference zone. 

 The 2009 Q2 Viewpoints release is now available to Viewpoints licensees.  This release contains two scenarios:  1) RBAC's quarterly GPCM base case (09Q2base) and 2) a modified 09Q2base which uses the assumptions for supply and demand from EIA's Annual Energy Outlook 2009 (April Stimulus Package assumptions) long run case combined with EIA's most recent (July 7th) Short Term Energy Outlook for July 2009 - Dec 2010.

These two scenarios provide quite different views of the future of natural gas in North America:  RBAC's view generally positive, EIA's surprisingly pessimistic.

GPCM Viewpoints is a specially designed version of the GPCM Natural Gas Market Forecasting System which gives its licensees the ability to view  the assumptions and results of GPCM scenarios designed by RBAC's in-house natural gas market analysis team.  Scenarios are updated and released quarterly, just like RBAC's GPCM Base Case.

GPCM Viewpoints licensees may also request custom scenarios of their own design be implemented and run by RBAC and then released privately and securely to themselves alone.

Next GPCM Viewpoints release is scheduled for late October 2009.

GPCM Base Case licensees can now download the latest GPCM Base Case release from the RBAC website.  Selected assumptions for the release are as follows:

• The non-LNG supply outlook has been updated using a detailed forecast framework for both conventional and unconventional natural gas

• The supply curves for Barnett, Woodford, Haynesville, Marcellus, and Fayetteville shales have been updated for 09Q2.
• Supply Link fuel percentage was updated by Province by year for the lease and plant fuel losses in Canada. 
• GDP and other economic indicators have been revised to -3.1% for 2009,     -1.1% for 2010, 0.0% for 2011, 4.0% for 2012, 3.3% for 2013 and then resumes previous trends from 2014 through 2035.  The 09Q2 world oil price forecast consults EIA’s Short-Term Energy Outlook, the Nymex futures forecast and others.  We aggregated these views into our current Supply and Demand Forecast Builder.  For 09Q2 we are increasing 2009 through 2011 by $5.00 each and reaching $90.00 Real Price going forward from 2014 through 2035.

• Demand for gas in the electricity producing sector in the US is based on regression models for the ELC sector and for electricity generation itself and have been updated for 09Q2.
• A new demand curve was created for the Northwest Territories for LDC demand that is met on-site from local production.
• NOVA, TCPL Alberta pipeline zone rates and fuels were updated and historical yearly fuel applied.
• A 6-month short-term weather forecast based on NOAA forecasts has been incorporated into the demand curves for July 2009 through December 2009

RBAC is proud to announce the release of GPCM version 9.11.2.  In this version we have again worked on improving GPCM’s stability and functionality, and have also made several important enhancements. 

First, users can now create supply and demand curves with vertical segments other than the last (most right).  This gives you increased flexibility in modeling your curves. 

Second, the Source Destination Flows report now has the capability to compute sources for each pipeline zone.  This particular enhancement must be used carefully, as it causes the size of the database to increase quite a bit.  Therefore it is advised to use this on single scenario databases of run length 25 years or less.  To enable this feature, open the GPCM_Parameters, locate the RunSDF parameter, and set GPCM_Value2 to True. 

Third, databases which are compared or imported from are now automatically updated to incorporate all the enhancements in the latest version of the GPCM software.

In addition to the enhancements, there were several minor bug fixes.  Please refer to the attached release notes.

• The non-LNG supply outlook has been updated using a detailed forecast framework for the Shale outlooks

• GDP and other economic indicators have been revised to -3.1% for 2009, -1.1% for 2010, 0.0% for 2011, 5% for 2012 and 2013, and then resume previous trends from 2014 through 2035.  This reflects a Recovery and Rebound phenomenon found in other historical recessionary periods.  By Rebound, it is meant a type of recovery which overshoots historical long term rates before returning to the pre-recession trend line.
• The 09Q1 world oil price forecast consults EIA’s Short-Term Energy Outlook, Global Insight, and the Nymex futures forecast.  It is used for generation of our gas supply and demand curves.  This forecast is lower than for 08Q4 in the near term but has the same long-term real price of $90.

• LNG supply constraints have been added to the base case scenario. These constraints are based on best estimates of LNG available to North America in the Pacific and Atlantic basins, including a supply bubble in the 2009 – 2011 time-frame.  These constraints have the additional feature that maximum available supply is reduced by 25% during the winter months of December, January and February to account for competition with Asia and Europe for LNG supplies.   In the 09Q1 case we have added a 3-year LNG bubble of 1 bcf/day beginning in June 2009 on top of the linearly trending supply we assumed in the 08Q4 case.
• A 6-month short-term weather forecast based on NOAA forecasts has been incorporated into the demand curves for April 2009 through September 2009.
• A new Zone and Interconnect were added to Dominion Pipeline along with other changes to more accurately model the Leidy Basis location and Storage Facility.
• Several Off-shore Pipeline capacities were updated to reflect the reduction in Capacity since Hurricane Katrina/Rita.
• Texas South (ERCOT) area was split into two demand areas, Texas South (ERCOT) and Texas Houston (ERCOT).  Customers were subjectively assigned to the majority area that they serve.  This is the first step in updating Customer Shares, which is starting in the state of Texas and will be updated throughout the US in the coming quarters.  This work will be done by customers and counties to most accurately match NERC and Sub-NERC areas as well as regional demand.  

• Mexican production was divided into four supply areas.  They are Northeast (Tamaulipas, Nuevo Leon, Coahuila), Central (Vera Cruz, Hidalgo, Puebla, San Luis Potosi), South Onshore (Campeche, Chiapas, Tabasco), and South Offshore. 
•  A new customer was added to Mexico demand to reflect the use of South Offshore production that is used in oil field operations .  This customer is categorized as an LFP (Lease/Plant Fuel) customer due to its uniqueness and the fact that this gas is not used for Residential, Commercial, Industrial or Electric Generation purposes.

1. As previously promised, we have made GPCM and its databases compatible with Access / Office 2007. The program and its databases continue to be compatible with Access 2003. Though it works with Access XP, this is not recommended due to problems with the whole Office XP release from Microsoft. The standard release of GPCM and GPCM base case will no longer work with Access 2000. If your firm is still using Office / Access 2000, please contact RBAC support at 818-881-3000 to discuss your options.
2. We have integrated the Demand Case Builder directly into the GPCM user interface. You will no longer have to use or be able to use the GPCM_Demand_Forecaster.mdb. However, you will be able to recover demand case drivers and assumptions from the GPCM_Demand_Forecaster.mdb file you have used with other databases. The integration means that the assumptions you make in creating demand cases are now included in your database and will be saved with any new databases generated from your existing databases. These assumptions won’t be lost.
3. We have also integrated the Storage Plan Builder into GPCM.
4. We have created a new Customer Builder which is accessible in the Infrastructure Scenario menu. This allows you to create new customers with demand links, customer shares of total state-sector demand and demand records for these new customers.
5. Improvements in the logic and functionality o the New Pipeline Builder and Storage Builder.
6. Fixed a major problem in the calculation of Source Destination Flows when
   “loop-flows” occur in the GPCM scenario results. A “loop-flow” is an example where gas moves from one zone to another and then back again to the original zone. A loop could involve movement through many zones before arriving back to the first one. Normally this should not happen, but a couple of modeling assumptions can create conditions for loops: 1) Min Flow on zones or pipe links or other links can be set to values other than zero. If this is contrary to the directionality the market would choose (as modeled in GPCM), then one could end up with flows in both directions, i.e. a loop. 2) Negative costs and / or loss fractions on pipeline links. This can result in a loop because the total cost of traversing the loop can be negative. This methodology is no longer used by RBAC. It has been replaced with the approach discussed in the last user conference and documented in “Pipeline Modeling with GPCM - Best Practices – September 2008”.
7. A new report has been designed named “Inputs & Outputs Summary”. This is accessed via the “Summary Reports” sub-menu of the Reports menu. This report contains a summarization of the inputs and outputs from each case in the database.
8. Calibration of the model has been improved by using all parameters of the transport cost curve (FDQ%, ZDQ%, and NDQ%) and by including both pipeline zones and pipeline links in the calibration process. This means that the costs incurred moving gas within zones and between zones can both be discounted if the flow is insufficient to justify full rates. 
9. Non-calibration runs now also use this principle. For example, let’s suppose there is a two-zone pipe and gas can move from Zone 1 and Zone 2. The three costs of interest are C11, C12, and C22, i.e. the costs from 1 to 1, 1 to 2, and 2 to 2. We now model this as follows: C11 and C22 are costs assigned to zones 1 and 2, respectively. Pipeline link Z1 to Z2 gets a cost of C12 – C22. With the new methodology, all three of these costs are discountable, depending on the utilization of capacities in the two zones.
10. A number of functional improvements have been made. Most notably, the Export to Excel function has been speeded up and file saving has been improved.
11. We have found a way to speed up execution by 10-20% depending on the size of a run. This involves an improvement in the way results from the solver are read back in to the GPCM database.

• The non-LNG supply outlook has been updated using a detailed forecast framework for the Shale outlooks. (See Appendix B.) 
• Starting in 08Q4 we include gas production in Indiana.
• Alaska gas will not move south to market prior to mid-2020. We expect that it will take at least 10 years to build the pipeline based on estimates that BP and ConocoPhillips have announced once State and Federal go-aheads are received. 
• Mackenzie Delta gas is turned off due in part to high labor costs and indigenous opposition. 
• All LNG facilities not currently in-service will be required to charge higher rates for re-gasification due to increases in labor, steel, and the weakness of the dollar in the international market. (We have estimated this at $0.75 per mmbtu.) This has the impact of making LNG more expensive.
•  The mid-range average annual wellhead price for gas changes over time at the same rate as the annual average price of West Texas Intermediate crude oil. This assumption is based on an RBAC analysis of correlation of gas and oil prices and corroborated by a 2007 study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, Texas (see Appendix A). LNG supply curve prices are also assumed to be indexed against world oil price.
• GDP and other economic indicators have been revised lower to 0.8% for 2008, -2.2% for 2009, -1.1% for 2010, 0.0% for 2011, 1.1% for 2012, 2.2% for 2013 and then resumes previous trends from 2014 through 2035. The 08Q4 world oil price forecast consults EIA’s Short-Term Energy Outlook for the 2008 and the Nymex futures forecast. It is used for generation of our gas supply and demand curves. The 08Q4 case assumes average WTI price (in 2008 $) of $55 in 2009, rising to $70 in 2010, and then $90 from 2011 through the end of the scenario in 2035.
• RBAC bases its demand curves on 30 year average HDD and CDD estimates by state and province.  However, we also use near-term 6 month forecasts from NOAA to adjust the HDD and CDD forecasts for Jan-Jun 2009.
• GPCM demand curves were revised this quarter.  The resulting equations, used with the economic and weather drivers described above, resulted in a lower demand level in the ELC sector than had been previously projected.  The primary causes of changes in equations were instances where the previous equation produced unsustainable increases in electrical sector gas demand or in states where renewables mandates are expected to reduce demand for gas-fired generation.
• The principal differences in this quarter's forecast in comparison with the previous one are 1) lower demand, 2) higher indigenous production, 3) lower prices, 4) lower LNG imports.  See the document "08Q4base Documentation.pdf" on the website for details.