Dynegy informed the trade press Tuesday of its decisions to stop reporting natural gas, liquids and power pricing information for index calculations and to exit the Committee of Chief Risk Officers, which has been developing guidelines for price reporting and indexing. The main reason for its decisions, Dynegy said, was its reorganization, particularly its plan to exit third-party energy marketing and trading, which is substantially complete.

“After careful consideration by our senior management and board of directors, we have decided that we will not report power, natural gas or natural gas liquids transaction information to index publications,” John Sousa, Dynegy’s vice president of corporate communications, said in a letter to publications, including Natural Gas Intelligence.

“As you may know since we announced our restructuring and reorganization last fall, Dynegy has substantially wound down its third-party marketing and trading activities. It is our intention to fully exit this business. Given our diminishing presence in this area and a decreasing number of transactions, we do not believe that Dynegy would be a significant source for the transaction information that you seek,” Sousa said.

A Dynegy spokesman said the decision to exit CCRO was based on its decision to stop price reporting. “We appreciate the leadership that CCRO has provided and the time and effort they have spent to develop guidelines, but our decision to exit really stems from our decision not to report prices.”

Dynegy, whose predecessor Natural Gas Clearinghouse was the industry’s first natural gas marketing company, announced plans last October to exit the energy trading business (see Daily GPI, Oct. 17). In January, the company canceled its long-term purchase and sale contracts with ChevronTexaco (see Daily GPI, Jan. 21).

The series of upheavals was triggered initially by its ill-fated attempt to merge with Enron Corp. in late 2001 when Enron’s meltdown began. The merger subsequently failed, costing Dynegy millions. However, Dynegy also paid a $5 million fine to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to settle charges it tried to manipulate U.S. energy markets, and paid $3 million to the Securities and Exchange Commission to settle charges of round trip trading and issues involving off-balance sheet transactions (see Daily GPI, Dec. 20, 2002; Sept. 25, 2002). A former Dynegy natural gas trader, Michelle Maria Valencia, is awaiting trial on fraud charges for allegedly sending false price data to an industry publication.

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