Notice of Changes to the Weekly Natural Gas Storage Report
Released: November 5, 2015
At 10:30 a.m. on November 19, 2015, EIA will release the Weekly Natural Gas Storage Report (WNGSR) with new data breakouts for five regions of the Lower 48 states, converting from the current three-region structure.
Two additional methodological changes will go into effect to improve the transparency and utility of the WNGSR. These changes will better reflect markets and provide more useful data.
- The threshold for published revisions and reclassifications between working and base gas will be reduced from 7 billion cubic feet (Bcf) to 4 Bcf.
- Unscheduled release of revisions to WNGSR data will occur when the cumulative sum of data changes or corrections to working gas and the net change between the two most recent report weeks is at least 10 Bcf. Additional detail on unscheduled releases can be found in the revision policy.
This third and final notice of upcoming changes to the WNGSR provides:
- Details on the timing and process of converting the current three-region format to the five-region format.
- An updated data history file with new estimates for the WNGSR data across the five regions from the week of June 19, 2015, through October 16, 2015.
- Information on the first publication of new WNGSR data in the five-region structure on November 19, 2015, at 10:30 a.m.
CONVERSION OF DATA ON NOVEMBER 16, 2015
On Monday, November 16, 2015, at 3:00 p.m. EIA will re-release the data that will be published on Friday, November 13 (for the week ending Friday, November 6) in the new five-region format. The release will be conducted through the same timed countdown procedures used for normal releases on the same WNGSR web page: http://ir.eia.gov/ngs/ngs.html.
The new five-region data will replace the previous three-region data, and the three-region report will not be retrievable on the WNGSR page. However, the three-region data for weeks prior to this release will be available on an archive page.
The purpose of this out-of-cycle conversion is to allow EIA to convert the web page to the new five-region structure without putting at risk the timing of the regular 10:30 a.m. weekly release.
The table below describes the schedule and format for the upcoming releases.
| Date | Time | Report Period | Format | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Friday, November 13, 2015 | 10:30 a.m. | November 6, 2015 | three-region | Alternate release day (Friday) due to Veteran's Day |
| Monday, November 16, 2015 | 3:00 p.m. | November 6, 2015 | five-region | Special release day and time, 3 p.m., replacing November 13 report and implementing new format. |
| Thursday, November 19, 2015 | 10:30 a.m. | November 13, 2015 | five-region | First release of new week's data in five-region format |
| Wednesday, November 25, 2015 | 12:00 p.m. | November 20, 2015 | five-region | Alternate release time due to Thanksgiving |
| All times are Eastern. | ||||
UPDATED FIVE-REGION DATA HISTORY
In the August 31 notice, EIA provided WNGSR users a five-year derived history of WNGSR data broken into the new five regions. As discussed in the FAQ document, total inventories for those weeks were derived by reallocating previously submitted respondent-level data and previous estimates for nonsampled respondents. The differences primarily result from independent rounding and typically total less than 1-2 Bcf.
Today, EIA is providing an additional series of historical data for the intervening weeks from June 19, 2015, through October 16, 2015. This series was estimated by running respondent data through the five-region WNGSR processing system, and as such, the differences from the three-region data are mainly attributable to the estimates for the nonsample companies as described in the methodology. The difference in the new comparative data to the previously published three region Lower 48 total is as high as 8 Bcf. The absolute average difference is about 2 Bcf over the period.
The final intervening weeks of five-region history will be released on the website on Monday, November 16.
Once EIA makes the live conversion to the five-region WNGSR report on November 19, EIA will no longer publish three-region data. The old three-region data will be available on an archive page once the five-region format is implemented.
PUBLICATION OF NEW FIVE-REGION WNGSR DATA ON NOVEMBER 19, 2015
As noted above, at 10:30 a.m. on November 19, 2015, EIA will release the WNGSR with data breakouts for five regions of the Lower 48 states (for week ending November 13). The report will be released under the same timed countdown procedure on the same WNGSR web page: http://ir.eia.gov/ngs/ngs.html.
If you have additional questions, please contact Jose Villar at jose.villar@eia.gov or (202) 586-9613.