June 29, 2005—Albuquerque, NM and Houston, TX—UtiliPoint^® International, Inc. has launched a major new study on natural gas software systems and Information Technology. The study follows on from last years innovative and acclaimed look at software and IT trends in North American Power Marketers. The natural gas study is focused on the software systems, vendors, technologies and architectures used to support natural gas production and revenue accounting through to marketing and risk management. Additionally, the study's survey will review IT expenditures and budgets in an effort to establish, for the first-time, industry benchmarks.

Gary M. Vasey, Ph.D., Vice President of UtiliPoint's^® Trading and Risk Management Practice said, "A comprehensive review of the nature of technologies and applications used to support the natural gas value chain is long overdue. We expect this new study to provide ground breaking and important new metrics for the industry."

Kevin Rose, a UtiliPoint^® affiliate consultant who is assisting with the new study added, "The results of this study will provide information that will be important to those selecting and implementing software as well as to the vendors of those solutions. This is especially so in the post-merchant era when producers need to have adequate systems support for their marketing efforts, for example."

The study has already attracted the six sponsors including energy companies, software vendors and consultants.

Anyone wishing further information on the study, which is ongoing, should contact Gary M. Vasey, Ph.D. at gvasey@utilipoint.com (281.681.8020) or Christopher Perdue at cperdue@utilipoint.com for more information and to request the survey instrument.