TECO Energy’s energy services subsidiary, TECO Solutions, has purchased Prior Energy Corp., a mid-sized southeastern energy marketing firm, from Prior Chemical, a subsidiary of ICC Industries. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The acquisition is expected to be neutral to TECO’s earnings in 2001 and slightly accretive in 2002. It also will significantly expand TECO’s marketing operations in the Southeast and Gulf Coast regions.

Prior Energy does about 500 MMcf/d in gas sales and is expected to have about $750 million in revenues this year, said Prior President Fred Roe. Prior, which has been in operation since 1987, provides gas supply management, transportation management, asset management and consulting services for customers in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas. The company has seen significant growth over the past two years, and as gas prices have increased, it has sought to enhance its financing capabilities.

“It’s a matter of growth. We have grown dramatically in the last two years,” said Roe, adding the company has tripled in size over that period. “We hit a point where we needed deeper credit facilities because of the fact that natural gas is more expensive than it was a few years ago.

“The electric side of this [transaction] has a lot of synergies associated with it so this is a good fit for us,” he added. “It’s not just in the Florida sector where we’re already active. We are able to offer some energy management services that TECO currently doesn’t have in house.

“We hope to increase our volumes in Florida. TECO has a very strong presence there and it’s well thought of. We hope to expand into providing more fuel for power plants, but we are not going to change our way of doing business.”

TECO Solutions President Bill Cantrell said, “This will enable us to bring our companies’ complementary services to a growing client base throughout nine states.” He added that the expertise and industry reputation of the existing Prior Energy management team are an important part of the acquisition. “We consider the employees of Prior Energy to be among the best in the business, and we look forward to having them join our team.”

TECO Solutions is an unregulated subsidiary of TECO Energy Inc., an energy-related holding company headquartered in Tampa. Other TECO Energy businesses include Tampa Electric, Peoples Gas System, TECO Power Services, TECO Transport, TECO Coal and TECO Coalbed Methane.

©Copyright 2001 Intelligence Press Inc. Allrights reserved. The preceding news report may not be republishedor redistributed, in whole or in part, in any form, without priorwritten consent of Intelligence Press, Inc.