In outlining his company’s strategy for this year, Union PacificResource’s CEO George Lindahl III said it will continue to focus ononshore North America plays. The company, he said, has budgeted$750 million for capital spending in 2000, including $100 millionfor property purchases. This budget should enable UPR to stabilizeproduction volumes by the middle of the year and increase volumesin the second half, while replacing over 100 percent of producedreserves. UPR also intends to continue the trend of increaseddrilling activity. Twenty-five rigs are now running in the U.S.,compared to 11 at this time last year and 17 at the end of 1999.Drilling in Canada has also picked up, with 11 rigs running today,compared to 13 in March of 1999 and four at year-end. Lindahlfocused on three specific areas that will be vital for thecompany’s growth: the Frontier play in southeast Wyoming’s GreenRiver Basin, South Louisiana’s Etouffee discovery and the Kluawells in British Columbia. “Our exploration activity in Wyoming,south Louisiana and British Columbia shows that we are making goodon our strategy, which is to find and produce natural gasopportunities onshore North America,” Lindahl said. “Our rig countshould continue to increase during the year. Development drillingis one of our strengths and we are hard at it onshore NorthAmerica, in the Gulf of Mexico and in Latin America..We believethat we are off to a good start to delivering value in 2000.”

Wisconsin Energy and WICOR announced they received notificationfrom the Federal Trade Commission that it has closed itsinvestigation into the proposed acquisition of WICOR by WisconsinEnergy. Both companies are moving ahead to complete regulatoryreviews and currently expect to complete the transaction on April26. Wisconsin Energy and WICOR announced the proposed transactionon June 28, 1999. Wisconsin Energy is a Milwaukee-based holdingcompany with subsidiaries in utility and non-utility businesses.Its principal subsidiaries are Wisconsin Electric, Edison SaultElectric, Wisvest, Wispark and Minergy. Wisconsin Electric provideselectric, gas and steam service to about 2.4 million people. WICORis a Milwaukee-based, diversified holding company operating sixsubsidiaries in two industries: energy services and pumpmanufacturing. The subsidiaries are Wisconsin Gas, WICOR Energy,FieldTech, Sta-Rite Industries, SHURflo Pump Manufacturing andHypro Corp.

Morgan Stanley Dean Witter Private Equity, Goldman Sachs andWarburg Pincus Ventures invested $35 million in NetworkOil Inc., aglobal Internet marketplace for petroleum equipment and services. Itis the company’s second round of fund raising. The first round raised$12.5 million from investors exclusively engaged in the oilindustry. “During our evaluation of NetworkOil, we recognized acombination of strengths, including management’s energy-industryexpertise and the company’s customer-focused business model.NetworkOil is rapidly signing both buyers and sellers, which webelieve is the key to quickly building a liquid and neutralmarketplace,” commented Michael Hoffman, managing director of MorganStanley Dean Witter Private Equity. Houston-based NetworkOil’selectronic exchange provides a secure, neutral forum for conducting avariety of transactions, including requests for bid, auctions andreverse auctions. For more information see https://www.networkoil.com. “We believe thatNetworkOil is positioned to succeed in streamlining oil-and-gasprocurement, benefiting both buyers and sellers,” said RandyBlumenthal, managing director of Goldman Sachs. “The company is thefirst-mover in the category and is backed by a significant number ofoil and gas companies with aggregate capital spending in excess of$8.5 billion.”

Con Edison Energy (CEE), a wholly owned subsidiary ofConsolidated Edison has won a contract to supply 20% of wholesalepower required for Western Massachusetts Electric Co.’s (WMECO)standard distribution service. Under the terms of the one-yearcontract, CEE will also be responsible for supplying the capacityand ancillary services associated with the energy delivery. “We areexcited about the opportunity to use our wholesale tradingexpertise to meet the needs of WMECO’s customers as well ascapitalizing on our generation assets located in WesternMassachusetts,” said Charles Weliky, Con Edison Energy COO. ConEdison Energy purchased 290 MW of fossil and hydroelectricgenerating assets auctioned by WMECO in 1999. The assets arelocated in Western Massachusetts and include the West SpringfieldStation and an on-site combustion turbine, the Doreen Street andWoodland Road combustion turbine sites and five hydroelectricsites. These facilities established Con Edison Energy’s foothold inNew England, and will provide a mix of intermediate and peakingcapacity as well as “Green Power” energy derived from renewablehydroelectric resources.

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