Will JIT become JTL

Just in Time is a good mechanism for reducing the capital requirements for any activity that requires stock. JIT can, however, become Just Too Late under some circumstances.

We will not know what will happen this week with any certainty in part until it has happened.

Collating the different figures for the gas supply market occurs slightly in arrears. I normally have a reasonably good view about 60 hours after the end of a gas day. The first figures released are the storage and linepack figures.

Yesterday a small amount came from short term storage and a teeny bit from long term storage (flushing the pipes still) and 159 GWh came from Medium Term Storage.

I am really not sure that the methodolgy currently used for calculating the safety monitors is reliable in the cirumstances and have made that point to National Grid and the Health and Safety Executive.

All in all I think we really sail far too close to the wind and as a consequence could capsize. This, however, will not be come widely clear unless there is a serious problem beyond the prices going haywire (which is already a material problem).

With a bit of luck we might even inject something into storage today and tomorrow. Then comes the real challenge (according to the weather forecasts)