Latest update: September 30, 2010
Note: The weekly storage estimates are based on a survey sample that does not include all companies that operate underground storage facilities. The sample was selected from the list of storage operators to achieve a target standard error of the estimate of working gas in storage which was no greater than 5 percent for each region. Based on a comparison of weekly estimates and monthly data from May 2002 through July 2010, estimated total working gas stocks have exhibited an average absolute error of 17 billion cubic feet, or 0.7 percent. </B>
Background
The Energy Information Administration (EIA) provides weekly estimates of working gas volumes held in underground storage facilities at the national and regional levels. These are estimated from volume data provided by a sample of operators that report on Form EIA-912, "Weekly Underground Natural Gas Storage Report." The EIA first released its estimates of underground storage for the week ending May 3, 2002, on May 9, 2002, in the Weekly Natural Gas Storage Report (WNGSR). EIA also publishes data for the end-of-month working gas volumes that it collects from the form, EIA-191, "Monthly Underground Gas Storage Report." While these surveys both result in estimates of working gas in storage, some differences between the two series occur, which are useful to understand when comparing current weekly data estimates with values in prior years or to the corresponding data from the monthly series.
Table 1 presents the difference between estimates of working gas in underground storage as reported at the end of each month on Form EIA-191 (a monthly census of all underground storage operators) and end of month estimates interpolated from the weekly estimates (based on a sample of storage operators reporting on Form EIA-912).