Regulatory review of Northwest Natural Gas Corp.’s proposed purchase of its neighboring utility, Portland General Electric, from bankrupt Enron was suspended Tuesday for 60 days at Northwest Natural’s request so that it can more fully answer questions concerning how the bankruptcy might materially affect the $2.98 billion acquisition. The earliest estimated target for a final decision from the Oregon Public Utilities Commission is now the fall of this year; it had been late May.

“It was clear (in a hearing with two of the three PUC commissioners) that all the parties were able to agree to the suspension so the [administrative law judge] approved our request,” said Northwest Natural’s Portland, OR-based spokesperson Steve Sechrist. A Portland-based attorney representing Enron was present at the hearing, too, and the ALJ is encouraging that an Enron senior executive from Houston be present when the PUC proceedings resume May 17.

Settlement discussions with all of the major stakeholders that had been scheduled earlier in March will now be postponed until June. “From that point the timeline calls for a settlement conference in August, evidentiary hearings in late August and simultaneous briefs in September,” Sechrist said. “So really we are now looking at fall before the commission is able to render a decision.”

Sechrist noted that the company does have some concerns about what impact the delay will have on the economics and the financing of the sale, but they are not the most immediate ones. More pressing concerns are what Northwest Natural outlined in a March 1 8K filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission. The biggest concern is to what extent there are liabilities attached to Portland General, post-Chapter 11 bankruptcy, that Northwest would have to assume and that are not figured into its purchase agreement.

“We don’t know if there are other concerns that we need to know about,” Sechrist said. “We need to first get the information from Enron, analyze it and determine what, if anything, has changed in it since the sales deal was struck last year. And then there may be new agreements we would have to negotiate.”

Part of the stakeholder group includes the Industrial Customers of Northwest Utilities and a large industrial gas customers’ group. The former group has been pushing for the deal to be suspended indefinitely until more detailed information is forthcoming from Enron.

Enron’s historic bankruptcy filing came less than two months after Enron agreed to sell its only regulated utility to the Portland-based natural gas utility for $1.8 billion in cash and stock, and another $1.18 billion in assumed and forgiven debt.”

“It is the biggest bankruptcy in corporate history and has a lot of issues,” Sechrist said. “We’re just one of many issues before them in the bankruptcy court.”

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