Calpine Corp. of San Jose, CA, plans to invest $750 million ingeneration to serve Florida’s wholesale power market. The companywill manage its southeastern activities from a new office to beopened in Tampa. Calpine will develop two gas-fired energy centers,including the 1,080 MW Blue Heron Energy Center, to be located inIndian River County outside Vero Beach, and the 540 MW OspreyEnergy Center, to be located in the Auburndale adjacent toCalpine’s existing power facility. Together, the proposed energycenters will produce enough electricity to power nearly two millionFlorida households. The Blue Heron Energy Center will produce up to1,080 MW of electricity and represents an investment ofapproximately $500 million. The $250 million Osprey Energy Centeris designed to generate 540 MW . Construction is planned for 2001,with the Osprey project slated for operation in early 2003, andBlue Heron in mid-2003.

El Paso Merchant Energy Co. agreed with Energy Management Inc.to buy two 67 MW gas-fired electric generation plants in Dartmouth,MA, and Pawtucket, RI. El Paso will hold a 100% ownership interestin both facilities and will perform all operations and maintenancefollowing close of the sales, planned for this quarter. EnergyManagement is a privately held company and a leading New Englandindependent power developer. The company is the managing generalpartner and operator of new gas-fired merchant plants in Dighton,MA, Tiverton, RI, and Rumford, ME.

BP Amoco and PricewaterhouseCoopers made a $200 million, ten-yearagreement to expand their global business process outsourcing (BPO)relationship to include Canada, where BP Amoco is the largest producerof natural gas. The deal is believed to be the largest BPO contractfor finance and accounting services in Canada and the first agreementof its kind in the Canadian energy industry. Business processoutsourcing is defined as the long-term contracting of non-corebusiness processes to an outside services provider. BP Amoco willoutsource to PricewaterhouseCoopers BPO Canada its Accounting Servicesand associated Information Technology Groups in Calgary. Approximately300 BP Amoco employees based in Calgary will joinPricewaterhouseCoopers to form a new service unit that will managevarious business operations of BP Amoco and other companies, includingfinance, administration and information technology. The agreementfollows the signing of a $1.1 billion contract between BP Amoco andPricewaterhouseCoopers for BPO services in the United States,announced in November (see Daily GPI, Nov. 11).

Penn Octane Corp. announced the completion of two pipelines totransport Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG) and other petroleum productsfrom the Port of Brownsville, TX to their new storage anddistribution terminal in Matamoros, Mexico. Actual pumping of LPGthrough the 21-mile pipeline is scheduled to begin today. The otherpipeline, which runs parallel to the LPG line, will ship the otherhydro-carbon products. The pipelines’ capacity is 50 milliongallons each of LPG and an equal amount of other products permonth.

Get ready for a Southern Co. advertising invasion. Theinternational electric company announced yesterday that its new $8million advertising campaign will begin today. Ads will be placedin many major news publications, including The Wall Street Journal,the Washington Post, and the New York Times. The company said itwill focus on delivering a relevant message to specific andtargeted audiences such as the financial, policy maker and largeenergy user communities.

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