Mayo

Baltimore-based Constellation Energy Group will sell its upstream gas assets in an effort to improve liquidity, CEO Mayo Shattuck III said Thursday. The assets, including Constellation Energy Partners LLC (CEP), have a book basis of $850 million and could sell for as much as $1 billion, Shattuck said.

Adding a little clarity Friday to Constellation Energy Group’s decision to call off its $31 billion merger with FPL Group earlier in the week (see Daily GPI, Oct. 26), CEO Mayo A. Shattuck said that a “perfect storm” of political and energy price events led to the cancellation. During a conference call with analysts, he said the company saw “no clear path to completion” of the deal and “no events on the horizon” that would have cleared up the uncertainty.

Constellation Energy Group CEO Mayo A. Shattuck said that a “perfect storm” of political and energy price events led the parent company of Baltimore Gas & Electric (BGE) to call off its $31 billion merger with FPL Group. During a conference call with analysts Friday, Shattuck said the company saw “no clear path to completion” of the deal and “no events on the horizon” that would have cleared up the uncertainty.

Constellation Energy is focusing on “getting the simple things right,” Chairman Mayo A. Shattuck said, reporting that the parent of Baltimore Gas & Electric would be building customer-oriented services, including risk management, onto its expanding customer base. “We’re managing our way through the turbulent energy markets as well as any company in industry.”

Constellation Energy Group CEO Mayo Shattuck expects the shakeout in the energy marketing and trading business to take up to two years and to bring down several more of Constellation’s competitors in that time period.