Enron Mail

From:mike.roberts@enron.com
To:vince.kaminski@enron.com
Subject:London Status Report - Research Weather Effort
Cc:
Bcc:
Date:Thu, 12 Apr 2001 02:32:00 -0700 (PDT)

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 12z 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.

1030AM: 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 0z 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 0z
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 12z 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 20th. As such - I can continue in my current role
through my planned vacation - keeping me in London until the 27th - which is
my current reservation back to Houston. I am also open to remaining in
London beyond the 27th 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.