Benchmark Process

David,

Here is a short list of what it takes to pull positions into the benchmark.

1) Once a book is officialized it must be loaded into GRMS BEFORE the
positions can be pulled into the benchmark.

2) With everyone officializing books around the same time the GRMS que is
overloaded and positions are very slow to be loaded into GRMS.

3) GRMS processes books in the order that they are officialized. If one of
your books is officialized behind either the Nymex, Power, or Canadian books
your book will not be loaded into GRMS until these books are finished. This
process can take up to 45 minutes to complete.

4) I have to manually create text files for deals that they system is not
designed to handle. These files must then be loaded into GRMS.

4) I have to manually override Post-IDs that for one reason or another do
not come in automatically or that come in incorrectly.

5) The benchmark query takes approximately 15 minutes to complete. The more
books that are officialized, the longer the query takes.

6) When books are unofficialized and reofficialized, this effectively sends
that book to the back of the GRMS que. This means that the entire process
must be started over.

7) Now that plugging positions is no longer an option, I have to spend time
researching any variances that arise between the GRMS position and the ERMS
position.

8) If the book admin and I cannot solve the problem, then I have to contact
the GRMS support team. Since this usually occurs after their regular hours
it takes a while before they can get back in touch with me.

9) I cannot query new data while I'm researching variances or on the phone
with GRMS support because I need access to the information that is currently
in the bench.

10) Finally, this is a massive file therefore we frequently get errors and
have to shut down. Even if the spreadsheet has been saved and no data is
lost it still take about 10 minutes just to shut this file down and reopen
it.

If you have any more questions let me know.

Robin
x57478