Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator instructions) And our first question comes from the line of Mr. Mark Connelly with Sterne Agee. Please proceed.
Mark Connelly – Sterne Agee
Thank you. Just two things, Mike. Your press release talks a little bit about where you are in terms of hedging, but I wonder if you could talk about your attitude towards hedging and taking advantage of today’s low gas prices more generally. Has your emphasis shifted? And you’ve talked in the past about maybe doing something to try to lock in more broadly. I wonder if you could just give us a sense of where you are going.
Mike Bennett
Well, I’ll sure do my best. First of all, obviously, like many folks, we continue to watch this market very carefully. And we do think that there is a timeframe here under which it may well make sense to take advantage of some length in the gas market, certainly given the history we’ve seen over the past eight or nine years. At the current time, obviously prices are very attractive on relative terms and very favorable for the business.
And as we look forward, obviously gas and storage continues to build at a pretty steady rate. We have record inventories right now, something in the range of 400 to 500 Bcf greater than the five-year average. And without really much in the way of hot weather, I guess, in the medium term forecast, it would appear that the gas and storage will continue to build as we move into the fall. And so we are looking carefully at not only near-term like winter ’09, ’10 strips, but also, as we have indicated before, have investigated and continue to investigate opportunities to enter into medium-term arrangements that we fell may be more advantageous.
Again, this isn’t one of these all-in types of bets, but something that we think could be an opportunity to secure a smaller percentage of our gas needs for the medium-term. But at this point in time, we still think the market trends appear to be moving slowly in our favor. And we will continue to monitor that and be prepared to act, as we see market conditions change.
Mark Connelly – Sterne Agee
And just one more question. We thought we had seen some signs of life in the non-ag ammonium nitrate markets. Can you tell us what you’re seeing in those markets right now?
- To read the full transcript on Seeking Alpha, click here »



