Altra Energy Technologies Inc. got a financial boost last weekfrom Conoco Inc., which made an undisclosed equity investment inthe Houston-based electronic trading system. Conoco was alreadyusing Altra systems for some of its end-to-end natural gas andnatural gas liquids electronic trading and transaction processingand natural gas pipeline operations management systems.

So far this year, Conoco has made three equity investments inthe growing e-commerce market. In April, Conoco was one of 14founders of a global procurement exchange for energy andpetrochemical companies, and also made an equity investment inHoustonStreet Exchange for wholesale trading of crude oil, refinedproducts and natural gas through its trading site,HoustonStreet.com.

Mike Johnson, Conoco’s vice president for natural gas and gasproducts, said the investment will help the Houston-based companyto “substantially increase” its volume of electronic transactionsfor all of its energy commodities.

“Altra’s commitment is to provide a quality product and servicethat connects the trading clearinghouse to the transactionalrequirements of the commodity itself,” Johnson said. He said thatfor natural gas trading systems, Altra offers the industry’s firstmid-office and back-office support.

AEP, BP Amoco and Koch Industries have already made investmentsin the Houston-based company, and Altra executive vice presidentMark Crosno said that Conoco was a “good fit” with its existingenergy investment participants.

“Conoco’s investment in Altra is yet another vote of confidencein our trading systems and supporting transaction managementsolutions, and in the growing adoption of online trading,” Crosnosaid.

Bill Mohl, Altra’s vice president of commercial operations, saidthat the volume of trading in the second quarter was flat comparedwith the first quarter, but said that the number of trades was up.

“We saw the volume of trades down, but the number of trades upby 25%,” Mohl said. He attributed his company’s steady growth tothe “market makers” like Conoco, which he said have “made a bigdifference in attracting other businesses to the service.”

Other competitors entering the market have made a difference, he said, but “nobody out there has real liquidity.” Altra now faces competition from new startups like powerhouse online EnronOnline, already considered the world’s leading online trader based on revenue despite the few months it’s been in the marketplace, and Coralconnect (see NGI, May 22).

Mohl said he “truly believes” that e-commerce will provide moretrading in the years to come, especially as the volatility of themarket settles down. “We’ve seen the power trading up in July, andI’d say that e-trading is here to stay.”

Along with garnering strong energy industry support, Altracontinues to take in technology honors. For the second year in arow, it is listed in Red Herring magazine’s “Top 100” technologycompanies, and in May it was named by AMR Research as the world’sNo. 1 business-to-business independent trading exchange. Altra wasformed only four years ago by Williams and the former PanEnergy(now Duke Energy), and was one of the very first online tradingsystems for natural gas.

Carolyn Davis, Houston

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