Citizens Utilities agreed to sell all of its electric utilityoperations in Arizona and Vermont to Cap Rock Energy Corp. and itsKauai (Hawaii) electric division to Kauai Island Electric Co-op.The total sales price was $535 million and the transactions areexpected to close within twelve months. The operations serve atotal of 119,000 customers. Citizens’ electric utility operationsare the second group of the company’s Public Services businesses tobe sold. Citizens’ water and wastewater operations were sold inOctober 1999 for $835 million. Still to be finalized are the salesof Citizens’ gas distribution businesses. The proceeds from the allof the divestitures will be used to permanently fund Citizens’announced acquisitions of nearly one million telephone accesslines. Citizens Utilities provides telecommunications services andpublic services including gas distribution, electric distribution,water distribution and wastewater treatment services to 1.9 millioncustomers in 22 states.

The U.S. Department of the Interior’s Minerals ManagementService (MMS) will hold Central Gulf of Mexico Lease Sale 175 onMarch 15 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, 500 Poydras Plaza, NewOrleans, LA. “This is the 57th lease sale in the Central Gulf ofMexico and I am optimistic about the expected results. While lastyear’s Central Gulf sale received a relatively low number of bids,it was within our expectations. We are hopeful that this year’ssale will be stronger…” said MMS Director Walt Rosenbusch. Thesale involves 4,203 available blocks encompassing about 22.29million acres in the Central Gulf Outer Continental Shelf PlanningArea offshore Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. Blocks in thesale are three to 200 miles offshore in depths ranging from four tomore than 3,425 meters.

Columbia Electric, a subsidiary of Columbia Energy Group says ithas purchased the 50% interest owned by Westcoast Power in theLiberty Electric Power Project, a 500 MW gas-fired combined cyclepower plant in Eddystone, PA. Columbia is the primary developer ofthe project which “will be one of the first merchant power plantsto be in service in the growing PJM market,” said Mike Gluckman,president of Columbia Electric. The plant is in the late stages ofdevelopment and is targeted for service in early 2002. “We are indiscussions with a number of parties eager to partner with Columbiain the project,” Gluckman said. “Westcoast has chosen to withdrawfrom the project at this time to pursue other investments in Canadaand the U.S. that are in regions where we already have businessactivities,” said Jeff Myers, president of the BritishColumbia-based Westcoast. “This year represents the third of threerecord years for capital investment for Westcoast Energy, a timewhen we will invest more than C$4.2 billion. We intend to focusmore firmly on the projects we are completing this year. We areworking to ensure that these projects are built and operating ontime and on budget.”

Altra Energy Technologies is making progress upstream,downstream and in the middle. The company announced this week ithas signed Marathon Oil, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) andPuget Sound Energy as customers for its electronic softwareproducts. Marathon Oilhas licensed Altra* Risk for managing itsgas liquids and crude book, and TVA is licensing Altra’s Risk andPower system to handle their marketing and scheduling operations.Altra Risk is flexible, scaleable and spans front-to-back officeoperations “to integrate all aspects of trading and risk managementof energy and energy-related commodities. Altra Power providesreal-time integrated management of physical, administrative andfinancial transaction processes, helping businesses buy, sell andtransport power more efficiently.” The Pacific Northwest electricand gas utility, Puget Sound Energy, meanwhile, has signed on asthe first client to take advantage of Altra’s integrated suite ofproducts, Altra *Risk, Altra Gas and Altra Power.

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