Utilicorp United’s Aquila Energy subsidiary was awarded afive-year contract to supply the power needs of Alcoa’s aluminumsmelting facility in Badin, NC. Under the contract, Kansas City,MO-based Aquila will provide risk management for both power and theimpact of weather on the energy production of Alcoa’s generatingunits. Aquila also will support the plant with the power it needsto operate its smelter 24-hours a day, seven days a week, throughthe optimizing of Aquila’s supply, Alcoa’s own generation, and themarket. “This agreement provides a stable and consistent powersupply for Alcoa’s base load energy demand, while effectivelymitigating the weather-related variability of its generatingcapacity,” said Tripp Dunman, senior director of IndustrialOrigination for Aquila.

The nation’s first virtual energy utility and subsequently oneof its most popular online utilities, Albany, CA-basedUtility.com’s CEO/founder Chris King confirmed that he is pullingback from three states, California, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts,and reassessing his company’s future plans. He refused to provideany more detail at this point, but industry observers speculatethat the runaway wholesale gas and electricity prices havedevastated the online natural gas and electricity provider that isreportedly giving up 30,000 electricity customers in Pennsylvania.A spokesman for the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commissionconfirmed it had been notified that Utility.com would be droppingout of that market, but he said the effect on the Pennsylvaniachoice program would be negligible. Most of the marketers inPennsylvania offer fixed price programs, but that has not been aproblem there since the state, powered mainly by coal and nukes,enjoys relatively stable prices and is a net exporter of power. ThePUC spokesman there had been no unusual fall-off among othermarketers and the agency had understood the financial problemsstemmed from Utility.com’s involvement in the California market.The online utility plans to continue in the business of providingsoftware applications for utilities.

Louisiana based-Stone Energy Corp. reported it has completed itsmerger with Basin Exploration almost three months after thecompanies signed their initial agreement. Basin stockholders willown 29% of the new company, which will retain the name of StoneEnergy and its headquarters in Lafayette. As of Dec. 31, 1999, thecombined company’s total proved reserves were 597 Bcfe.

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