The following table shows global natural gas production

Chapter 4, Problem 32

(choose chapter or problem)

The following table shows global natural gas production for the years 1990 1996. The abbreviation tcf stands for trillion cubic feet. Year Natural gas production (tcf) 1990 71.905 1991 73.037 1992 73.219 1993 74.570 1994 75.190 1995 76.614 1996 80.045 Source: BP Amoco Statistical Review of World Energy (49th ed.) http://www.bp.com/worldenergy (a) Use a graphing utility or spreadsheet to determine the equation of the regression line. For the x-y data pairs, use x for the year and y for the natural gas production. Create a graph showing both the scatter plot and regression line. (b) What are the units associated with the slope of the regression line in part (a)? (c) In your graph of the regression line, use a TRACE or ZOOM feature to make an estimate for natural gas production in the year 1999. (d) The actual production figure for 1999 is 83.549 tcf. Is your estimate high or low? Compute the percentage error. (e) The table above shows that global production of natural gas increased over the period 1990 1996, and in fact it still continues to increase each year. However,for purposes of making a very conservative estimate,lets assume for the moment that natural gas productionlevels off at its 1999 value of 83.549 tcf per year.According to the BP Amoco Statistical Review of WorldEnergy, as of the end of 1999, proved world reservesof natural gas were 5171.8 tcf. Carry out the followingcalculation and interpret your answer. Hint: Keeptrack of the units.