Southern Company Energy Marketing (SCEM), a joint venture ofSouthern Co. and Vastar Resources, said its second quarterelectricity sales jumped 21% to 48.2 million MWh from last year’ssecond quarter. Natural gas sales, however declined by 8% to 4.3Bcf/d.

SCEM attributed the decline in second-quarter gas sales to adecline in market liquidity, along with expected temporaryinterruptions in trading while merging its Houston trading floorinto its Atlanta trading floor. For the first half of the year,however, the company is 12% ahead of the 1998 pace with 5.5 Bcf/dof sales on average, compared to 4.9 Bcf/d in the first half oflast year.

Power sales rose 13% for the first half of the year to 91.5 MWh.The company was the third largest seller of electricity in thefirst quarter of 1999, selling over 41 million MWh. If SCEMmaintains this pace, it will be in line with its full year 1998results of 185.1 million MWh, which earned second place for theyear behind Enron.

“Southern Energy’s newly acquired electricity generation and theoutput available to our energy traders had a direct impact onelectricity sales,” said Marce Fuller, CEO of Southern Energy.”This is another sign that our strategy to associate assets withour trading operation is working.”

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