American Electric Power Inc., Columbus, Ohio, said it filed documents with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for approval to complete a planned restructuring of the corporation's regulated and unregulated holdings. AEP announced its restructuring plan last October and filed documents with the Securities and Exchange Commission in November outlining the plan to form two wholly owned corporations.
Bay Gas Storage Co. Ltd., Mobile, Ala., a subsidiary of EnergySouth Inc., has completed construction of its 11- mile, 20-in. steel loop pipeline north of Mobile. The pipeline runs between the storage facility's McIntosh, Aala., plant to near Mt. Vernon, where it interconnects with the Florida Gas Transmission pipeline. Bay Gas Storage is currently building a second salt dome storage cavern in McIntosh. The new cavern will have working gas capacity of 3.5 MMBtu, more than doubling Bay Gas's capacity.
Puget Sound Energy, the utility subsidiary of Puget Energy Inc., Bellevue, Wash., filed a request with regulators to lower bills an average 8.3% over a 12-month period for all of its natural gas customers. The reduction for residential customers averages 7% over the 12-month period, or about $5/month. The average monthly household natural gas bill would drop to $72.
Black Hills Energy Capital Inc., Rapid City, SD, the independent power subsidiary of Black Hills Corp., reported signing a definitive agreement to buy a 273 Mw gas-fired power generation complex located in North Las Vegas, Nev., from Enron North America, an Enron Corp., Houston, unit. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2001. Terms were not disclosed.
PSEG Global, Parsippany, NJ, said it won the bid to purchase up to a 100% interest in Empresa de Electricidad de los Andes SA (Electroandes) with a bid of $227.1 million. Electroandes is the sixth largest electric generator in Peru with a 6% market share. PSEG Global, a unit of Public Service Enterprise Group. Inc., has an indirect 44% interest in Luz del Sur, the largest electric distribution company in Peru. With the purchase of Electroandes, PSEG Global will be the largest US investor in Peru, the company said..
A unit of American Electric Power Co. Inc., Columbus, Ohio, said it agreed to buy MEMCO Barge Line Inc. from a unit of Progress Energy, Raleigh, NC. The purchase price of $270 million includes the early termination of certain off balance sheet lease financing related to assets of MEMCO. Progress Energy will use net proceeds from the sale to pay down debt. The transaction is expected to close within 60 days.
Excelergy Corp., Lexington, Mass., said it implemented software that will allow American Electric Power Co. Inc. to become fully certified for automated data exchange in the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT). ERCOT is the corporation administering the state's power grid and is scheduled to open the $16 billion Texas electricity market to competition in the coming weeks. AEP currently operates about one-seventh of ERCOT's daily energy capacity.
The Royal Dutch/Shell Group said it agreed to buy a 50 Mw wind farm in Wyoming, its first commercial wind venture. Amsterdam-based Shell Renewables' U.S. wind energy operation, Shell WindEnergy Inc., has signed an agreement with San Diego wind farm developer SeaWest WindPower Inc. to buy the Rock River I wind farm, the company said. The energy will be sold to PacifiCorp, a unit of Scottish Power PLC under a 20-year power purchase agreement.
Laos's Electricit�u Laos awarded a $17 million contract to ABB Group, Zurich, Switzerland, to design and build a 340 km, 115 kv double circuit transmission line, and a 282 km, 34.5 kv distribution network, including distribution transformers. ABB said the order was placed by the state-owned utility, and is set for completion within 2 years. The project is financed by the Asian Development Bank.