About GUERNSEY's Economists

Donald A. Murry, Ph.D.  Dr. Murry is currently a Vice President and Economist with C. H. Guernsey & Company and a Professor Emeritus of Economics on the faculty of the University of Oklahoma. He holds a B. S. in Business Administration and a M.A. and a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Missouri–Columbia.

Dr. Murry is a recognized expert in the economics of the natural gas and electric industries including issues of capital costs, financial structure, mergers and acquisition, antitrust and market performance and deregulation. He has published extensively in the areas of his expertise and directed many research projects for public agencies and private firms.

Since 1964, Dr. Murry has consulted for a number of private and public utilities, state and federal agencies, and other industrial clients regarding energy and regulatory matters in the United States, Canada and other countries.  In addition, he has testified or provided expert witness testimony before approximately 40 regulatory commissions. He also has also testified in state and federal courts as an expert witness in market performance, competitive and antitrust issues.
           
Zhen Zhu, Ph.D.  Dr. Zhu holds a B.A. in Business Administration from the People’s University of China, a M.A. in Economics from Bowling Green State University, and a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Michigan.  He is currently a Consulting Economist with C. H. Guernsey & Company.  He is also a Professor of Economics at the University of Central Oklahoma.

Dr. Zhu specializes in the areas of natural gas market modeling, gas price and storage forecasting, load forecasting, financial analysis of merger potential and other market analysis.  He has performed various studies regarding corporate merger activities, stock market and foreign exchange market volatility, and financial market deregulation. Dr. Zhu has been instrumental in successfully modeling the storage injections and withdrawals from the U.S. natural gas reservoirs and the impact of these net supply changes on natural gas prices. This family of storage, physical and financial models includes estimates of spot market prices and provides two-week future and longer-term gas price forecasts. Dr. Zhu and other GUERNSEY economists have received national recognition for successfully modeling the prices of natural gas in the physical market and at many trading hubs used in pricing natural gas in today’s markets.

 Dr. Zhu has also provided expert testimonies before several regulatory commissions in the areas of long term energy and demand forecasts, and fuel price forecasts.

Michael Knapp, Ph.D.  Dr. Knapp holds a B.A. in Economics from the University of Texas-Austin and a M.A. and Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Oklahoma.  He is currently a Consulting Economist for C. H. Guernsey & Company and is a member of the American Economics Association and the National Association of Forensic Economists. He has taught undergraduate and graduate level economics.

Dr. Knapp has experience in the evaluation of gas and electric wholesale prices and market analyses. He has developed risk management and hedging tactics for clients for protection from market exposure, performed cash flow analyses to insure utility financial health, and monitoring and gas supply strategy of two major southwestern generation and transmission cooperatives. Dr. Knapp provides assessment of current valuation of electric and gas distribution properties for mergers and acquisitions, and analysis for estimation of the cost of capital for gas and electric utilities.

Dr. Knapp has also performed performance-based rates analyses and market analysis of antitrust and anticompetitive behavior. His experience includes research and forecasts of future energy costs through computer assisted econometric analytical methods for use in long-term strategic planning, as well as research, analysis and presentation of long-term impacts of mergers in the public utility industry.