Avista Energy will be shopping this year for gas storage in theMidwest and Northeast, and for electric generation and transmissioncapacity in the Pacific Northwest as part of an effort to bolsterits gas and power marketing portfolio, Avista President LloydMeyers said last week. “These will be necessary tools as westrengthen our competitive edge in an energy landscape thatcontinues to evolve.”

The nonregulated energy marketing subsidiary of Washington WaterPower believes its marketing performance in its first six months ofoperations shows it’s on track to becoming a powerful presence inthe national energy marketplace. The company is expecting 20%growth in earnings in 1998, according to Meyers.

Formally launched last April, Avista started trading in July andby the end of the year had sold 4.5 million MWh of power and 67 Bcfof natural gas. That growth was achieved partly through alliancesformed with Howard Energy in Michigan, Mock Energy in California,Energy West Resources in Montana and Chelan County Public UtilityDistrict in Wenatchee, WA.

The combined natural gas transactions between Avista Energy andaffiliate Howard/Avista Energy, LLC (Traverse City, MI) currentlyare nearly 3 Bcf/d. Myers said Avista plans to continue down thesame path this year with growth through more alliances.

“We’ll continue to form alliances and partnerships. What welook for is somebody that has an asset or a capability that wedon’t have, and if we bring our capability, we end up withsomething better than we had before. That’s what we’ve done so farwith three different partners on the gas side,” he said.

“We’re looking for partners that have gas customers, expertisein marketing gas. We bring in the electric expertise. On theelectric assets side, we are looking for generators that don’t havethe marketing expertise and are looking for somebody to markettheir generation. Those are the kinds of opportunities we’reseeking.”

Rocco Canonica

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