A Georgia bankruptcy judge yesterday issued an order authorizingthe sale of the stock of bankrupt marketer Titan Energy Inc. to AESPower Direct, a retail power provider. Terms of the transactionwere not immediately available.

The 16-page order issued by Judge W. Homer Drake of the U.S.Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Georgia calls for AESPower Direct, a subsidiary of AES Corp. in Arlington, VA, to paysome of Titan Energy’s biggest creditors, establishes a mechanismto pay off other creditors, requires Titan to surrender its Georgiamarketing certificate, and requires Titan Energy’s customers inOhio to be notified that the company’s stock has changed hands.

In addition, it requires AES Power Direct to allot sufficientfunding for Titan Energy to resume supplying gas to its remaining91,000 gas customers in the Ohio and Pennsylvania markets,according to a lawyer at Tuesday’s hearing. Titan Energy ofGeorgia, a subsidiary of Titan Energy, sold its 50,000 customers inGeorgia earlier this month to Energy America, a joint venturebetween Sempra Energy and Direct Energy Marketing of Canada.

Specifically, the order calls for AES Power to pay Duke Energy$6 million and Atlanta Gas Light (AGL) $400,000. Titan Energy hadfiled for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after Duke Energy’sDukeSolutions, the marketer’s wholesale gas supplier, filed alawsuit against Titan in federal court in Houston, accusing it ofbreach of contract. DukeSolutions contended that Titan Energy owedit $10 million. AGL said Titan owed $2.8 million.

The order, according to the lawyer, contemplates that TitanEnergy under the ownership of AES Power will emerge from bankruptcyshortly.

AES Power President Mead Babcock last week said the company wasinterested in acquiring Titan Energy because it would give AESPower, whose experience has been limited to the retail electricmarket, access to retail gas customers in the Ohio and Pennsylvaniamarkets. The McLean, VA-based retail energy company, which startedup a year ago, currently provides electricity to retail customersin New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania.

Titan Energy ceased supplying gas to its Ohio and Pennsylvaniacustomers when it sought bankruptcy protection on July 1, forcingColumbia Gas of Ohio and Columbia Gas of Pennsylvania to step inand provide the gas.

The Ohio LDC estimated it has been paying $28,000 a day tosupply Titan Energy’s customers in the state, while thePennsylvania LDC said it had been incurring costs of about $9,000 aday since July 1. It could not be learned Tuesday whether thecourt order provided for recovery of those costs by the LDCs.

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