Blaming a “necessary” investment to penetrate Georgia’sderegulating gas market, Scana Corp. posted 1998 fourth quarterconsolidated earnings of $31 million or $0.30 cents per share, downfrom $59 million or $0.55 cents per share for 4Q97. For the year,however, Scana Corp. increased consolidated earnings from $221million or $2.06 per share in 1997 to $223 million or $2.12 pershare for 1998.

“With the deregulation of Georgia’s retail natural gas marketlast October, Scana Energy has quickly become the leading naturalgas marketer in Georgia, capturing better than 45% of the marketshare to-date,” said Kevin Marsh, Scana’s CFO. “Our success inbuilding a customer base has exceeded our expectations. We view thecosts associated with developing this new market as a necessaryinvestment.”

“We came out with our guns blazing when the Georgia marketerswere allowed to start,” said Warren Darby, a Scana spokesman.”That, combined with our ability to organize our billing right fromthe get-go gave us an advantage over the other marketers.” Darbyadded that the monetary commitment from the senior management hasaided in Scana’s success, and it ” demonstrates that we’ll be herefor the long-term.”

As of the end of 1998, Marsh said Scana signed 72,000 Georgiaenergy customers. Since the beginning of January, Marsh said Scanahas been signing customers at a rate of 2,000 per day.

The fourth quarter disparity was also attributed to the Dec.1997 sale of Scana’s exploration and production business, whichadded $.16 cents to 1997’s per share total.

The company said higher electricity sales, more favorableweather, and customer service aided in the overall improvement. Forthe year, Scana’s electric customer base increased 2.7% to 517,447people. The company sold 274 MMcf/d in 1998, representing a 6.5%increase over the previous year. 1998 results were also bolsteredby a $110 million stock repurchase program that reduced outstandingcommon shares by 3.7 million.

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