Subject: london status report - research weather effort
vince ,
fyi to give you background for tomorrow ' s telephone conference
steve is really a home - run hitter
mike
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - forwarded by mike a roberts / hou / ect on 04 / 12 / 2001
09 : 26 am - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
enron north america corp .
from : stephen bennett @ enron 04 / 12 / 2001 09 : 02 am
to : mike a roberts / hou / ect @ ect
cc :
subject : london status report
hi mike ,
before we meet with vince tomorrow - i thought we should drop you a line and
give you an idea as to what ' s been accomplished in the first week as well as
some of the challenges and problems we ' ve run into . this way we can make the
most effective use of vince ' s time .
1 ) current products and customers
in our first 3 days - we established 6 different customer groups -
representing approximately 40 traders plus additional fundamentals and
analytics folks . the groups are : uk trading , gas fundamentals , crude
trading , weather derivatives , continental power , and an internal trader
newsletter .
we ' ve built the following framework to address these customers - the key
deadlines are noted :
0800 : uk trading / weather derivatives / fundamentals : prepare a 1 to 5 day uk
specific forecast and assess the 12 z runs of the ecmwf ( and ensembles ) , the
avn as well as earthsat ' s 1 - 5 day outlook . the traders are particularly
interested in the performance of the ecmwf as it feeds all of their demand
models . we prepare a 1 page summary and give an idea as to any particular
forecast biases - whether we feel things may come in warmer or colder than
the model . we brief the traders and field questions then provide our report
to the fundamentals group .
* * in the future we would like to be able to gather raw data from the avn and
mrf to provide a series of choices which could be input into their demand
models or at least be able to give them our " best pick " of guidance and how
we feel things may deviate from that pick .
1030 am : obtain the uk met 6 - 10 and 1 - 5 day forecasts . provide comment for
uk trading .
1200 : uk trading / crude and products / weather derivatives : prepare a full
qualitative analysis of oz models ( mrf / nogaps / canadian / ensembles ) . produce a
6 to 10 day europe forecast and make any needed adjustments to the 1 to 5 day
forecast . produce the global weather report including a global executive
summary ; analysis of teleconnections and their expected impact ; 1 to 5 and 6
to 10 day forecasts compared to earthsat ; a 10 day city forecast table for
european cities along with the expected effect on heating demand and finally
a " port status report " describing weather and port conditions in 11 worldwide
ports . update traders ( uk and wx deriv ) on changes or new trends in the oz
models . provide a quality assessment of the uk met 6 to 10 and 1 to 5 day
forecast for uk trading .
1330 ( mon - wed ) : brief the crude and products groups in london and houston .
1600 : review 12 z avn for any major forecast changes and communicate changes
to traders .
weekly : produce a weather article for " critical mass " - internal trading
newsletter .
of course between 1000 and 1330 we are looking closely at the us weather for
support to you guys in houston . i ' m still writing the daily us executive
summary as well as producing a 6 to 10 day us forecast .
2 ) requested projects :
* gas fundamentals has asked us to provide weather information for their
morning report and website . they would like to be able to gather objective
output from as many forecast models as we can get .
* weather derivatives has asked for week ahead , month ahead , and seasonal
outlooks for temperature and precipitation . they have also asked about
creating a tradeable " nao index " and developing an in - house model for
forecasting nao .
* continental power has asked for temperature and precipitation outlooks for
power generation and hydro .
* gas fundamentals , uk trading , continental power , weather derivatives and
crude and products have all asked for a european summer outlook for
temperature and precipitation . we expect to have this completed tomorrow .
* the research group has asked for assistance in gathering climate data
across spain for temperature and precipitation .
3 ) leads to follow up on :
* elsa in houston asked us to contact some of the softs traders here and let
them know once we were up and running .
* contact chris mahoney to determine if we can provide and additional support
for crude and products .
* follow up on a potential morning breifing for continental power
4 ) challenges :
* we ' ve been told that we will be moving locations next week - which might
entail corrupting or loosing the software and hardware configurations that
have taken almost a week to get fully established . it seems that this office
functions on a " hot desk " system where people are constantly moving around .
this will make it very difficult to stay connected - as well as very
difficult for our customers to identify us .
* administrative detail take an inordinate amount of time . assembling
reports both physical and electronic can take nearly as long as actually
preparing the reports !
- - -
mike ,
ok - i think that brings you up to speed . i ' ve been amazed at the amount of
feedback we ' ve already gotten and we ' ve only been here 3 days ! on that note
i wanted to let you know that i am fully committed to this project . it seems
that we will not have a second meteorologist to assist tony by my planned
departure date on the 20 th . as such - i can continue in my current role
through my planned vacation - keeping me in london until the 27 th - which is
my current reservation back to houston . i am also open to remaining in
london beyond the 27 th to ensure the success of this project .
hopefully this gives you a good idea as to what ' s gone on in the first few
days here . we look forward to talking to you later today and with you and
vince tomorrow .