A few years ago, there were about twenty gas marketers. Now there are about 250. Although many of these firms have grown to very respectable size, shipping nearly a billion cubic feet a day and employing more than a hundred professionals, this segment of the industry is still new enough that a great deal of systems work is required.
(Natural Gas has covered this industry development thoroughly through Mark M. Willett's regular column, "Systems," and a number of other articles.)'
Systems Companies Vary in Size and Experience
A number of companies are attempting to fill the demand for these systems. One of these companies is GasTrak Holdings, an Overland Park, Kansas, company that also markets gas, owns reserves, and builds and holds gathering systems.
Tracing the way the need for systems for marketers has developed, GasTrak President and Chief Executive Officer Robert C. Murdock said: 'The first people that got involved with developing systems to manage the natural gas marketing transactions-whethether they be transactions that a producer has, or [that] an LDC or a pure intermediary [hasl-those first systems were developed by the people that were in the business itself. When 1 started