Note:   Update on ammonia plant operations. Check out the economics in the last paragrph. LB Ammonia Industry Finally Approaches Full Production  Plummeting gas prices have prompted a large number of idled ammonia producers to restart operations this month, after lengthy downtime due to last winter's record gas price increases. Houston-based Industrialinfo.com, which tracks manufacturing, said most of the Gulf Coast and Midcontinent plants are at partial or full capacity. An ammonia industry expert at Duke Energy said there has been a 20% increase in ammonia production (222,000 tons of ammonia) since August, representing about 7.6 Bcf of gas demand (34 MMBtu per ton of ammonia). There was a doubling of ammonia productive capacity in Louisiana alone. "We think just about every plant in the U.S. is back on or in the process of coming back up right now," he said. "Obviously they are not going to be running full out, but every plant is coming back up." A year ago, ammonia producers were rocked by soaring natural gas prices, which reached $10/MMBtu, up from a historical average of $2. Combined with product overcapacity, the rising costs caused a wave of plant shutdowns across the country. Louisiana was particularly hard hit, with five out of eight ammonia plants idled during the summer. Arkansas, Georgia and Texas were among other ammonia producing states affected. The recent decline in gas prices and inventory, however, has sparked some ammonia producers into ramping up production. Triad Nitrogen and PCS Nitrogen both resumed full production in September at their respective plants in Donaldsonville and Geismar, LA, Industrial Information reported. Terra Industries restarted a Verdigris, OK, plant after an extended shutdown and is expected to bring its Blytheville, AK, plant online sometime this month. Koch Industries and IMC Agrico, with plants in Sterlington, Donaldsonville, Convent and Uncle Sam, LA, are now operating at partial capacity. Other ammonia manufacturers are waiting to see if natural gas prices remain stable before resuming production. DuPont in Beaumont, TX, Borden Chemical in Geismar, LA, and PCS in Augusta, GA, remain idled. "It looks as if these guys are going to make money running their plants all winter," the Duke Energy ammonia industry expert said. "They are making less and less money as gas prices rise and ammonia prices fall. I see them at the closest to break-even by February where gas is averaging about $2.85. "Last year the domestic producer margin was only about $3/ton," he said. "They pretty much broke even in terms of gas costs on average. This year they are probably going to make $20-25/ton of production. At $2.80/MMBtu for gas and 34 MMBtu of gas per ton of production, plus $25/ton of additional costs, it will cost them about $120/ton for ammonia production. In New Orleans they will probably cover that for most of the season." 
Answer: Ammonia Industry Plant Update
I wanted to wish each of you a Happy New Year and to also let you know that I will be on vacation through January 7. If there is anything that you need Maureen, Elizabeth & Gus will be in the office on January 2. Again, Happy New Year To All!!!!!! ! 
Answer: Happy New Year!!!!
There is a file under Netco for all currently unused books, rolls and hedge strips. O:\erms\erms_adm\netco\unused books. Rather than deleting these, they will remain here until they are needed. The NGP&L will link to these, once they are needed we will start saving it to the regions file and the links will be updated. There is also a hedgestrip saved for each book to the live and unused books files. We should also start creating a common file for each region to post the P&L to the website. Let's try to keep these the same format. East has a good file that shows new deals and     curveshift. West used a macro to pull in finished P&L's instead of updating links which eliminated some problems, Randy could help with this. Figure out what format you want and use that for all regions. I think everyone agrees that we don't want to give them a positions file like in the past, they should use TDS for that. I believe the TRV website should be ready to go tomorrow so we can set up the users and report #'s then. KK 
Answer: unused books
Suzanne: Please set up a meeting next week with Rod Nelson to talk about issues  relating to the Reliant Energy Services draft ISDA and CSA Schedules. We  probably need about 1 hour. Thanks. Carol 
Answer:
Meeting with Rod Nelson