I love this!!!! Danna
----- Original Message -----
From: Melanie Frazier
To: Danna Burkett  ; David  Frazier  ; dana63bug@earthlink.net  ; Danastrake@aol.com   ; Charlotte Hickey  ; Cissy Beeler  (E-mail)  ; brendabrunette@aol.com  ; Susan  Cravens
Sent: Monday, November 26, 2001 8:24 AM
Subject: Fw: I'm 517

----- Original Message -----
From: Jimmy Gallivan,  Jr.
To: gallivan@bed-rock.net
Sent: Wednesday, November 21, 2001 1:17 PM
Subject: I'm 517
Hope  everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Please take a moment to relax your  mind and humble your heart to
focus on Christ. Allow God, to be the only  person on your mind
while you read this prayer. If we can take the time to  read long
jokes, stories, etc., we should give the same respect to this
prayer. Friends that pray together, stay together.
Dear Lord,
I  thank You for this day. I thank You for my being able to see
and to hear  today.  I'm blessed because You are a forgiving God
and an  understanding God. You have done so much for me and You
keep on blessing me.
Forgive me this day for everything I have done, said or thought
that was  not pleasing to you. I ask now for Your forgiveness.
Please keep me safe  from all danger and harm. Help me to start
this day with a new attitude and  plenty of gratitude. Let me make
the best of each and every day to clear my  mind so that I can hear
from You. Please broaden my mind that I can accept  all things.
Let me not whine and whimper over things I have no control over.
And when this world closes in on me, let me remember Jesus' example
-to  slip away and find a quiet place to pray. It's the best response when
I'm  pushed beyond my limits. I know that when I can't pray,
You listen to my  heart. Continue to use me to do Your will.
Continue to bless me that I may  be a blessing to others.
Keep me strong that I may help the weak.
Keep  me uplifted that I may have words of encouragement for
others.
I pray  for those that are lost and can't find their way.
I pray for those that are  misjudged and misunderstood.
I pray for those who don't know You intimately.
I pray for those that will delete this without sharing it with
others.
I pray for those that don't believe. But I thank you that I
believe.
I believe that God changes people and God changes things.
I pray for all  my sisters and brothers. For each and every family member in
their  households.
I pray for peace, love and joy in their homes that they are out  of
debt and all their needs are met. I pray that every eye that
reads  this knows there is no problem, circumstance, or situation greater
than God.
Every battle is in Your hands for You to fight.
I pray that these words  be received into the hearts of every eye
that sees them and every mouth that  confesses them willingly.
This is my prayer.  In Jesus' Name, Amen.
If you prayed this prayer, change the number in the subject box
before  forwarding the message so people can SEE how many people have done
so.
God Bless!!!!!!!!!!!
Just repeat this phrase and see how God moves!!
Lord I love you and I need you, come into my heart, please.
Pass  this message to 8 people except you and me.
You will receive a miracle  tomorrow.
Don't ignore and God will bless you.
Know that you are already  blessed by the person whom sent this
to you.


Just FYI - I believe you entered these deals on Jan. 16. What were you
thinking? How long have you worked here? Can you say, "wrong counterparty
name"? Also, why don't you have your own trader ID yet? Geez.

Sincerely,
Kate

P.S. Don't worry - I corrected them for you.
---------------------- Forwarded by Kate Symes/PDX/ECT on 01/18/2001 12:56 PM
---------------------------

Rhonda L Denton
01/18/2001 12:47 PM
To: Geir Solberg/PDX/ECT@ECT
cc: Kate Symes/PDX/ECT@ECT

Subject: Los Angeles Department of Water and Power

Please change deal nos. 497905 and 498198 to Los Angelese Department of Water
& Power.


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I would like to acknowledge David Portz for his hard work and diligence in
drafting and actively supporting the negotiation of the Green Mountain Power
all-requirements transaction in ERCOT.   David worked long hours ensuring all
tight timelines were met and facilitated quick contract turnarounds on
numerous occasions.

In addition to Green Mountain, David has exhibited the same hard work and
diligence on other Texas transactions (San Antonio, misc. QSE contracts,
etc.)


i am doing great.  i am going to get my neck checked out again today ( i
can't beilieve you gave me those faulty genes).  i am sure you know that toni
woke up yesterday, she is cognizant and responsive but still can't speak or
move.  i will keep you updated.

how are you?

love,

e

"K. Bass" <daphneco64@bigplanet.com> on 08/08/2000 09:43:24 AM
Please respond to "K. Bass" <daphneco64@bigplanet.com>
To: Eric Bass <Eric.Bass@enron.com>
cc:
Subject: Re: ENE

Your father never listens to me, what can I say?  But, I'm very happy for
you!  How are you?  Any news on Aunt Toni?  LU-M
----- Original Message -----
From: "Eric Bass" <Eric.Bass@enron.com>
To: <lwbthemarine@bigplanet.com>; <daphneco64@bigplanet.com>
Sent: Tuesday, August 08, 2000 9:23 AM
Subject: ENE

>
>
> As Enron reaches new highs (82), I hope you took my advice to buy it at
74.  Did
> you?
>
> -E
>
>


Dear Sara,

If you haven,t already done so, your deadline to open and fund your IRA for
2000 is just a few weeks away!  If you haven,t made plans for your 2001 IRA,
now is also a great time to consider opening a monthly ShareBuilder No Fee
IRA so that it funds automatically from now on.

SET UP AN IRA TODAY
You can open a  No Fee IRA entirely online at
http://www.sharebuilder.com/sharebuilder/account/index.asp and build your
portfolio by making automatic, recurring dollar-based investments.
Importantly, ShareBuilder IRAs have no account or investment minimums, and no
annual fees!  Simply set up a monthly plan that fits your budget.

Even if you already have an IRA, you should consider opening a supplemental
ShareBuilder IRA because of the unique monthly investing feature.  The beauty
of our automatic funding method is that unlike your current IRA, it lets you
program $166 each month to be automatically deducted from your checking
account or payroll, giving you the ability to continuously invest throughout
the year.  You,ll be dollar-cost averaging, so the annual IRA rush will be
one less thing for you to worry about at tax time.

For most people, an IRA is one of the smartest ways to save for their
retirement.  But not everyone has $2,000 to invest in one lump sum prior to
the tax-filing deadline.  This is the only No Fee IRA that lets you
automatically build a retirement portfolio made up of individual stocks at
$166 a month.  Go to
http://www.sharebuilder.com/sharebuilder/account/index.asp to open an Account.

RETIREMENT PLANNING IS EASY
While we offer several choices, most of our customers are using the Roth IRA
alternative.  You can visit the ShareBuilder Investor Education Center to
learn the difference between a Traditional and Roth IRA, as well as get some
tips on to how to diversify your portfolio.  We can help you determine how
much you,ll really need to invest for a comfortable retirement and how to
estimate your retirement expenses.  The sooner you get started, the sooner
your money can start working for you!  Visit
http://www.sharebuilder.com/sharebuilder/research/investor_ed/articles/index.a
sp?topic=2 to start planning your future.

There are only about four weeks left for your 2000 IRA, so if you haven,t
done it yet, open an account this week.

Best regards,

Jeff Seely
President and CEO

P.S.  You are receiving this email because you have a  Account setup with
us.  You may unsubscribe, update or change your e-mail preferences, by
visiting  http://www.sharebuilder.com/sharebuilder/account/index.asp.

Copyright 1999-2001 ShareBuilder Securities Corporation, a registered
broker-dealer and Member NASD/SIPC, and a subsidiary of Netstock Corporation.
ShareBuilder is a trademark of Netstock Corporation. Patent Pending.  This
email was sent to:  sshackl@enron.com


Thank you for stopping by the Boardroom yesterday to congratulate me on my
college graduation.  It is due to Enron that I have been able to achieve this
lifelong goal.  I have also received unfailing encouragement, support, and
flexibility from Cliff during this time.  Had it not been for Cliff, I would
not have been nearly so successful.

My deepest thanks to the three of you.


EFF_DT PORTFOLIO_ID DOWN95
1/4/01 MANAGEMENT-CRD 26,055.
1/4/01 MANAGEMENT-GAS 215,220.
1/4/01 MANAGEMENT-PWR 126,036.
1/4/01 AGG-MANAGEMENT 325,844.


Jeff and I met with Troy Blakney this morning - he has agreed to join the
selection committee. We plan to meet tomorrow with Red Duke (lunch) and Roel
Campos (breakfast). Jeff has spoken with Gerald Smith and he has also agreed
to join the committee.

In terms of an action plan:
Once we have finalized the committee members, I will schedule a meeting
(preferably before the Febr. 1 scheduled news conference) with all members to
offer them an opportunity to meet one another and discuss how we will proceed.
Next, I will begin scheduling meetings with some key people that  would
provide the committee with important insight into the key issues facing the
HFD. Jeff suggested possibly blocking out an entire day where the committee
members would speak to these individuals back to back in 1 or 2 hour time
slots.
Then, a full day will be blocked out where the committee members will
interview the approximate 10 identified candidates.
The committee will then meet (half a day?) to narrow the list of 10 down to 3.
The three final candidates will be presented to the Mayor.

Lisa


I know the following:

1) Gulf Plains plant is in Nueces County.
2) Marathon on Tejas is Galveston County.
Check with George to make sure no one in his group has called the other pipes.  I f they haven't, you can look into the old scheduling contact list and call El Paso and Dow.  For El Paso Offshore, we probably need points, but I believe most of their system is in Matagorda County.

D

 -----Original Message-----
From: 	Olsen, Michael
Sent:	Tuesday, October 23, 2001 4:52 PM
To:	Farmer, Daren J.
Subject:	FW: State and County Verification

I cant figure out what to make of this...

 -----Original Message-----
From: 	Sheeren, Ryan
Sent:	Tuesday, October 23, 2001 10:23 AM
To:	Olsen, Michael; Smith, George F.
Subject:	State and County Verification

This is a follow up to the e-mail I sent earlier in th month.
Please be advised that we have discrepancies with the  State and County information for the meter No. (s) listed on the attached spreadsheet.
Will you please review this spreadsheet and provide the State and County information that you may have for the listed meters.

If you are not the scheduler for this pipe please forward this to the appropriate scheduler.

Please do not hesitate to contact me.

Thank you,
Ryan Sheeren

Enron Net Works
Global Facilities
ryan.sheeren@enron.com
(713)853-5817

 << File: El Paso Offshore.xls >>  << File: PI Exception Report - Gulf Plains Processing Plant.xls >>  << File: PI Exception Report - Dow Pipeline Company.xls >>  << File: PI Exception Report - Tejas Ship Channel, LLC.xls >>


Hello Team,

Sara is going to work on this agreement.

We noticed that the specified Enron entity was "ECT Optimization."  That entity is not familiar to us.  Is that right or did we mean ECT Investments Inc.?  Please let Sara know.

Thanx again, Sara.

Cheryl Nelson
Senior Counsel
EB3816
(713) 345-4693
http://gss.enron.com/


ENE: The Balance Sheet Matters; Prospects For Further Writedowns

*	ENE shares have declined due to concern over writedowns, actual and
prospective, in our view.  While management announced $2.21 billion in
charges ($1.01 billion through the income statement and $1.2 billion as a
direct charge to shareholders equity) when they reported earnings (see our
10/16/01 note), the prospect of further charges has spooked the stock
*	We think further write-offs are likely at non-core global assets
(Dabhol and South America) and possibly at their broadband unit (already
partially written off).  Several other complex off-balance sheet vehicles
have raised concern.
*	Offsetting these potential hits to shareholders equity are likely
reductions in debt from the proceeds of various asset sales over the balance
of the year
*	Moody's has captured these concerns by putting Enron's senior debt
on review for possible downgrade.
*	We are evaluating these issues and currently maintain our 1H rating.

 <<ENE Write-Off 10-19-01.pdf>>  <<ENE Write-Off 10-19-01.doc>>

Raymond C. Niles
Power/Natural Gas Research
Salomon Smith Barney
(212) 816-2807
ray.niles@ssmb.com

s
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST
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Africa (company registration number 2000/025866/07) and its registered
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Smith Barney Inc.
? Salomon Smith Barney Inc., 2001. All rights reserved. Any unauthorized
use, duplication or disclosure is prohibited by law and may result in
prosecution.


This is to confirm our conference call with CIPCO at 2:00 p.m. on Monday,
5/15 at 2:00 p.m.

the confernce room is 2942.

thanks

Oscar


Marguerite:

Because NorthWestern would like to change the name of Merchant Energy
Ventures, LLC to Montana Megawatts I, LLC at Closing, I have prepared a
Certificate of Amendment to this effect.  A copy of the Certificate of
Amendment is attached.  Also attached is a Closing Checklist that attempts
to capture the status of the transaction.  Please let me know if you have
any comments to either the Certificate or the Checklist.  Thanks.

Regards,

Marisa

 <<331H01!.DOC>>  <<2XPB06!.DOC>>

                    Confidentiality Notice
This message is being sent by or on behalf of a lawyer.  It is intended
exclusively for the individual or entity to which it is addressed.  This
communication may contain information that is proprietary, privileged or
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named addressee, you are not authorized to read, print, retain, copy or
disseminate this message or any part of it.  If you have received this
message in error, please notify the sender immediately by e-mail and delete
all copies of the message.

 - 331H01!.DOC
 - 2XPB06!.DOC


Steve,

Just follow the instructions at the bottom of this e-mail.

Paul
-----Original Message-----
From: Lindberg, Lorraine
Sent: Thursday, October 25, 2001 8:55 AM
To: 'hugh.r.lindberg@conoco.com'; Y'Barbo, Paul; 'jfawcett@sempra.com';
Lindberg, Susan
Subject: FW: Osama Movie

-----Original Message-----
From: Lohman, TK
Sent: Wednesday, October 24, 2001 4:59 PM
To: Lindberg, Lorraine; Armstrong, Julie; McConnell, Mark
Subject: FW: Osama Movie

-----Original Message-----
From: Lohman, TK
Sent: Wednesday, October 17, 2001 10:13 AM
To: 'swalker@sidrichgas.com'
Subject: FW: Osama Movie

Buehler's sick humor!  I've missed you.  Linda Ward called me and I had to let her know that Brad is my new "Main Man"!!!!!!!!!!!!!

TK
-----Original Message-----
From: Buehler, Craig
Sent: Monday, October 15, 2001 2:15 PM
To: Dietz, Rick; Bodnar, Michael; Jones, Dana; Lohman, TK
Subject: Osama Movie

This is funny! Don't have your sound up too loud.

Click on the link below, then click "Watch this movie", then click "PLAY" after it loads.

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view.php?id=33641


(See attached file: g020102.pdf)

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Ce message et toutes les pieces jointes (ci-apres le "message") sont etablis a l'intention exclusive de ses destinataires et sont confidentiels. Si vous recevez ce message par erreur, merci de le detruire et d'en avertir immediatement l'expediteur.

Toute utilisation de ce message non conforme a sa destination, toute diffusion ou toute publication, totale ou partielle, est interdite, sauf autorisation expresse.

L'internet ne permettant pas d'assurer l'integrite de ce message, BNP PARIBAS (et ses filiales) decline(nt) toute responsabilite au titre de ce message, dans l'hypothese ou il aurait ete modifie.
	----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This message and any attachments (the "message") are intended solely for the addressees and are confidential. If you receive this message in error, please delete it and immediately notify the sender.

Any use not in accord with its purpose, any dissemination or disclosure, either whole or partial, is prohibited except formal approval.

The internet can not guarantee the integrity of this message. BNP PARIBAS (and its subsidiaries) shall (will) not therefore be liable for the message if modified.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 - g020102.pdf


All,

The below is the final list  of candidates that I have recieved to interivew for the Origination Track.   All names have either been recommended or approved by their manger.  Each candidate will be contacted tomorrow and we will proceed with a late November interview date.   You, as the managment team will be expected to interivew candidates.    If there are any final additions you would like to make to the below, please let me know asap.

Kind regards,

Karen.
x54667

Candidates:		Referred/Manager Approval

Marks Jimmy		Mitch Robinson
Martin Gregory		Carl Tricoli
Quinn Kristin		Carl Tricoli
Edmonds Marcus		Lisa Bills
Brian Kolle		Lisa Bills
Buss JD		Brian Redmond
Little Kelly		Brian Redmond
Hinze Ryan		Brian Redmond/Jean Mrha
Ben Freeman		Jean Mrha
Oh Jeffrey		Todd Perry
Olsen Michael		Daren Farmer
Cardens Catalina		Chris Gaskill
O'Malley Justin		Chris Gaskill
Lauren Schlesinger		Chris Gaskill
Bart Burk		Chris Gaskill
Hoff Jonathan		Don Miller


Daily Blessing
Relax and Pray
http://www.daily-blessings.com/prayer1.htm

Hundred's of you have taken advantage of the free download available for the
Work From Home folks.  If you haven't checked it out yet...you should!!

http://www.daily-blessings.com/cjworkfromhome.htm

your printer is running...and you WILL need ink!!!  check out the great
prices at MrInkman!!  I sure use more ink than I like to think about, and
these folks keep me stocked up.  They are reliable, honest,and best of all
least expensive!!  check em out
http://www.daily-blessings.com/inkman.htm

<<<>>> <<<>>> <<<>>> <<<>>> <<<>>> <<<>>> <<<>>> <<<>>> <<<>>> <<<>>>
* To remove yourself from this mailing list, point your browser to:
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* Enter your email address (judy.hernandez@enron.com) in the field
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OR...

* Reply to this message with the word "remove" in the subject line.

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Hello everyone,

My husband Ryan is going to be participating in the American Heart Walk on November 3.  He is walking on behalf of our daughter, Sydney, who was born in May of this year with Congenital Heart Disease.  If anyone would like to sponsor us with a cash donation, we would be very appreciative.  I will be accepting donations today and tomorrow.  This is a wonderful organization whose research saves lives like Sydney's every day.  All donations are matched by Enron and are 100% tax deductible.

Please help this worthwhile cause if you can.

Thanks,

Vicki Versen
x30903


Please schedule a meeting with Travis, Mark and Mike Bridges early next week.

thanks
---------------------- Forwarded by Bob Shults/HOU/ECT on 11/15/2000 08:10 AM
---------------------------
From: Travis McCullough on 11/14/2000 08:51 PM
To: Lorraine Becker/HOU/ECT@ECT
cc: Bob Shults/HOU/ECT@ECT, Mark Taylor/HOU/ECT@ECT
Subject: Re: Letter of Interest to Amerex

The Amerex letter looks fine.

FYI, Mark Taylor has been working on the broker access project.  I think that
the structure of these deals may ultimately differ from the structure
described in the LOI and term sheet, but I'm not sure what the current
thinking is on the structure right now.  I do know that some more thought has
been put into the broker access concept since we developed the Natsource LOI
(upon which the other two were based), and that we have never gone back to
the Natsource LOI to make sure that it represented "the deal."

The LOIs/Term sheets on these deals are non-binding, so I don't think there
is any material legal exposure for sending them out and starting discussions
with these counterparties.  However, I think that when Mark Taylor returns,
we need to put our heads together and make sure that these proposals match up
with how we our current thinking on these structures.  If there is a big
difference, we can talk about approaching our counterparties on these LOIs
and explaining our new approach.

Travis McCullough
Enron North America Corp.
1400 Smith Street EB 3817
Houston Texas 77002
Phone:  (713) 853-1575
Fax: (713) 646-3490


This in an automated e-mail sent out from the Commissioner.COM
web site.  Do not reply to this e-mail, but instead please visit
your league's site at http://football.commissioner.com/kourn

-------------------------------------------------------------

Gary Lamphier requests the following transaction:.

  Drop Randall Cunningham.
  Add Laveranues Coles.

-------------------------------------------------------------

To approve this transaction, please go to your web site and
select Transactions, Requests in the Front Office.


Mike,

Can you send me a status update when you get a chance.

Thank you,

Phillip


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Jeff,

Attached is a full list of the deals that booked incorrectly.

Thanks,

Errol
---------------------- Forwarded by Errol McLaughlin/Corp/Enron on 05/01/2001
09:42 AM ---------------------------
From: Dawn C Kenne/ENRON@enronXgate on 04/23/2001 05:01 PM
To: Errol McLaughlin/Corp/Enron@ENRON
cc:

Subject: FW: Gas Daily Deals

 -----Original Message-----
From:  Kenne, Dawn C.
Sent: Monday, April 23, 2001 4:23 PM
To: Gossett, Jeffrey; Denny, Jennifer; Moorer, Torrey
Cc: Sweitzer, Tara
Subject: Gas Daily Deals


Greg and Jeff:

Bruce Garner just spoke to me about our base metals business.  He believes there is industry money that may either buy the business or sponsor a management buy-out and that we should pursue such prior to any rationalizing that business.  What's your reaction?

If it is positive, I recommend deputizing Bruce to lead the process.

Jeff


Deal for Use of Gas Pipeline Stirs Dispute on Competition
The New York Times, 03/26/01

Sale of Enron Unit To Sierra Pacific Becomes Unlikely
The Wall Street Journal, 03/26/01

Backing Bush Pays Off for Coal Industry Energy: Mineral is seen as key to
halting power crisis. Officials also target pending regulatory rules.
Los Angeles Times, 03/26/01
Abreast of the Market
Hunting for Signs That Stocks Are Bottoming
The Wall Street Journal, 03/26/01
It's About Time: A growing number of services let viewers pick what they want
to watch, when they want to watch it
The Wall Street Journal, 03/26/01
Overview --- Thumbs Up: What makes a good entertainment site click?
The Wall Street Journal, 03/26/01

What's News
United States
The Globe and Mail, 03/26/01

USA: Enron's deal to sell Portland General seen dead-WSJ.
Reuters English News Service, 03/26/01

Enron's 2 bln usd sale of PGE unit unlikely to go through - CEO
AFX News, 03/26/01

INDIA'S ESSAR MAY OPT OUT OF SHELL LNG VENTURE
Asia Pulse, 03/26/01

Business/Financial Desk; Section A
Deal for Use of Gas Pipeline Stirs Dispute on Competition
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. and LOWELL BERGMAN

03/26/2001
The New York Times
Page 1, Column 4
c. 2001 New York Times Company

Early last year, the El Paso Natural Gas Company took bids from two dozen
companies for the right to ship enough natural gas through its pipeline from
Texas and New Mexico to meet one-sixth of the daily demand of energy-starved
California.
The winner: El Paso's sister company, the El Paso Merchant Energy Company,
which buys, sells and trades natural gas. The bidding was not close. El Paso
Merchant offered twice as much for the capacity as the other companies bid,
in total, for bits and pieces.
Why pay so much more? California officials, who are pressing a complaint
against El Paso at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, say the answer
is simple. The state contends that El Paso Merchant, with help from its
sister company, saw the transaction as a way to manipulate the price of
natural gas by using its control of pipeline capacity.
According to sealed documents obtained by The New York Times that are part of
filings in the federal case, executives at El Paso Merchant said internally
that the deal would give them ''more control'' of gas markets, including the
''ability to influence the physical market'' to benefit the company's
financial positions.
El Paso executives called the accusations fanciful, and in a formal response
to California's complaint, said the state ''grossly distorted'' company
documents by quoting words and phrases out of context.
The dispute opens a window on an important debate about oversight of the
natural gas industry, which fuels a growing share of the nation's electric
power plants.
At issue is whether current safeguards do enough to prevent anticompetitive
abuses in the marketing and trading of natural gas, and whether federal
regulators adequately enforce existing rules. In particular, many industry
officials question whether regulated pipeline companies are able to favor
unregulated sister companies that trade natural gas and are free to maximize
profits.
More than 200,000 miles of interstate pipelines crisscross the country,
moving natural gas from Canada, the Southwest and other producing regions to
fuel factories, power utilities and heat houses.
Not long ago, many parts of the country had excess pipeline capacity. But
experts say that several regions, including California, New York and New
England, now face constraints as demand soars for gas to fuel power plants.
In California, state officials and utility executives said the documents in
the federal case, and El Paso's actions, were proof that the state's energy
crisis stemmed not just from an ill-conceived deregulation plan but from
price manipulation and profiteering.
''They are the market maker with this pipeline,'' said Loretta Lynch, the
president of the California Public Utilities Commission, which has struggled
to cope with skyrocketing power prices and supply shortages.
El Paso ''sets the price in California,'' Ms. Lynch said, and what it did was
intentional. ''It has affected the price,'' she said, ''for everything
related to heat and electrical power prices in the state.''
California's complaint to the federal agency contends that El Paso Merchant
''has hoarded capacity and refused to attractively price unused capacity'' on
the pipeline. The state also charges that El Paso Natural Gas, the pipeline's
owner, has had no incentive to spur competition, by offering discounts to
other users, because the two companies are corporate siblings. The state said
that El Paso had violated federal natural gas statutes that prohibit
anticompetitive behavior.
The sealed filings in the El Paso case indicated that the company expected to
make money by widening the ''basis spread'' -- the difference between what
gas can be bought for in producing basins of Texas and New Mexico, at one end
of the pipeline, and its price on delivery to Southern California.
As it turned out, spreads widened enormously over the last year as the price
of gas soared in California, adding to costs for wholesale electricity that
pushed the biggest utilities near bankruptcy. California utilities paid $6.2
billion above competitive prices for wholesale electricity over the last 10
months, state officials estimated. The utilities are not allowed to recoup
the costs from customers. While the cost of 1,000 cubic feet of gas typically
is less than $1 higher at the California end of the pipeline, spot prices in
the state rose to almost $50 more than the Texas-New Mexico price in
December.
To executives of the parent company, the El Paso Corporation, the accusations
of market manipulation are ludicrous.
High gas prices in California, El Paso executives said in interviews, are
easily explained by soaring demand, the poor credit standing of the state's
utilities and the failure of the utilities to retain pipeline capacity or
store enough gas for winter.
''The idea that anybody is holding back on California is really ridiculous,''
said Clark C. Smith, president of El Paso Merchant's operations in North
America.
Some El Paso customers, though, agreed with California officials. The Pacific
Gas & Electric Company, the San Francisco-based utility, condemned El Paso in
a filing with the federal agency after its lawyers reviewed the sealed
company documents.
''It is now very clear from the business records of El Paso Energy
Corporation,'' the utility said in the filing, ''that the business strategy
El Paso Merchant was authorized at the highest corporate levels to pursue
involved manipulation of price spreads.''
The agency has not ruled on California's complaint, which asks that the deal
between El Paso Natural Gas and El Paso Merchant be invalidated. Based on the
agency's history of policing energy providers lightly, many industry
observers predicted that the complaint would be dismissed, perhaps as soon as
the agency's public meeting on Wednesday.
Nonetheless, El Paso Merchant is feeling some pressure. The subsidiary said
recently that it planned to relinquish control of all but about 22 percent of
the capacity on the pipeline to California, rather than exercise an option
that would have allowed it to retain the entire capacity of 1.2 billion cubic
feet of gas a day.
Critics said they believed El Paso made the move in hopes of lessening the
chance of government action. El Paso executives deny that but do say that
their decision was influenced by the backlash over the arrangement.
Surrendering the pipeline capacity made for a ''gut-wrenching'' decision, Mr.
Smith said, but was ''a first-class gesture'' to California. El Paso Merchant
paid $38.5 million to control the pipeline capacity from March 1, 2000, until
May 31, 2001. While Mr. Clark said he did not know the return on that
investment, he acknowledged that it was lucrative.
''No doubt about it,'' Mr. Clark said, ''we made good money.''
The question of whether El Paso's conduct has driven gas prices higher is
expected to be scrutinized by legislators in Sacramento this week. The
company also faces several lawsuits, including one by the city of Los
Angeles, that accuse it of conspiring with other companies to prevent
pipeline projects that could have eased California's energy crisis. El Paso
denied the accusation.
With pipeline capacity and gas supplies tighter, concerns about
anticompetitive behavior have increased as price volatility has created
soaring profits for energy marketers and traders.
Dynegy Inc., a Houston-based energy trader, was once the target of complaints
to federal regulators that it had artificially raised prices by abusing
capacity that it controlled on El Paso's pipeline to California.
In a filing with regulators in January, Dynegy contended that pipeline
companies routinely favored affiliates. ''Abuses abound because of financial
windfalls, difficulty of detection, lengthy investigations and increased
complexity of the market,'' the company said.
''There are some red flags right now,'' said William L. Massey, a member of
the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission since 1993. Mr. Massey said he was
troubled by the potential for abuses when pipeline companies own gas and
power marketing subsidiaries as well as electric plants fueled by natural
gas. El Paso is in all those businesses.
''What the commission ought to be serious about is: What are the forces at
work? Is it simply robust markets responding to true supply-and-demand
signals, or is it a market defined by market power and some measure of
affiliate abuse?'' he said.
Many in the industry do not believe changes are needed.
''There are rules in place today that protect against affiliate abuse,'' said
Stanley Horton, chief executive for gas pipeline operations at the Enron
Corporation and chairman of the Interstate Natural Gas Association of
America, the industry's trade group, referring to the rules under which
California has brought its complaint about El Paso.
To its critics, El Paso epitomizes the competitive concerns. It operates the
nation's largest network of interstate pipelines and owns one of the largest
reserves of natural gas. With its recent acquisition of the Coastal
Corporation, another large pipeline operator, El Paso has a market
capitalization of $32 billion.
At a conference at El Paso headquarters in Houston in February, analysts
heard executives predict net profits of $1.7 billion this year. El Paso's
much better known rival, Enron, with its headquarters a few blocks away, is
expected to earn about $1.4 billion.
El Paso Merchant provides the strongest growth. Two years ago, the unit's
profits, before interest payments and taxes, were $99 million; this year, it
is expected to have $700 million in North America alone. In its latest
quarterly report, El Paso attributed those profits, in part, to ''commodity
market and trading margins'' that were enhanced by ''power price volatility,
particularly in the Western United States.''
Critics contend that El Paso set out to exploit those conditions. According
to the sealed filings, on Feb. 14, 2000, the day before El Paso Merchant was
awarded the pipeline capacity, executives made a presentation to William A.
Wise, chief executive of the parent company, laying out the rationale for the
bid.
The presentation outlined what it termed ''strategic advantages,'' including
''more control of total physical markets'' and the ''ability to influence the
physical market to the benefit of any financial/hedge position,'' according
to the sealed filings. The passages suggested that El Paso expected the deal
to give it sway over the market for trading actual volumes of gas and to
support financial transactions it had entered into with other parties to
limit its risk.
For every one-cent increase in the spread on gas prices, the presentation
said, El Paso Merchant stood to make an additional $2.4 million.
Under the heading ''Challenges,'' according to the sealed filings, the
presentation stated that storage was needed ''to help manipulate physical
spreads, adding to the overall transport/storage cost.''
On April 14, according to the sealed filings, El Paso Merchant's president at
the time, Greg G. Jenkins, wrote a memorandum to Mr. Wise involving an update
for directors meeting later that month. The memorandum stated: ''We will make
money two ways: 1) increase the load factor, 2) widen the basis spread.''
The language appears to suggest that El Paso Merchant would profit by
increasing the gas flow in the pipeline -- the load factor -- while
increasing the difference between what gas could be bought for at one end and
what it could be sold for at the other end -- the basis spread.
In an interview, Mr. Smith, the El Paso Merchant executive, said that the
unit's prices, and profits, on bulk gas sales in California were locked in
months in advance, so that the company could not benefit from rising prices
in the spot market.
Otherwise, Mr. Smith declined to provide any details about money made on the
pipeline deal or about financial terms of the transactions that locked in
prices ahead of time. In addition, Mr. Smith said that nearly all of El Paso
Merchant's pipeline capacity was used every day when prices spiked late last
year, with no capacity withheld to increase prices.
The company did not respond last week to a request to discuss information in
the sealed documents. But El Paso Merchant, in a filing with federal
regulators, said California's complaint had ''misconstrued and incorrectly
interpreted'' what it termed ''snippets of data.''
About This Report
This article and others on California's energy problems are part of a joint
effort with the PBS series ''Frontline'' that will result in a documentary
later this year.

Photo: The El Paso Natural Gas pipeline passes near Topock, Ariz. A dispute
over bidding for its use has spurred a debate about oversight of the
industry. (John Gurzinski for The New York Times)(pg. A17) Chart: ''Boom
Times'' Operating revenue and net income soared last year at the El Paso
Corpor 2/3ation, which sells, transports and trades natural gas. Graphs of
the operating revenue and the net income for the El Paso Corporation.
(Source: Company reports)(pg. A17) Chart: ''A Spike in Prices'' The spot
price for natural gas produced in the Permian Basin of West Texas doubled
last year. But the price that power generators paid when the gas was
delivered to Southern California rose almost 10-fold. State regulators say
the gap is evidence of market manipulation. Graph showing the spot price of
gas delivered to Southern California and the spot price of gas bought in the
Permian Basin, from September to March. (Source: Gas Daily)(pg. A17)

Copyright , 2000 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Marketing & Media
Sale of Enron Unit To Sierra Pacific Becomes Unlikely
By Rebecca Smith
Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

03/26/2001
The Wall Street Journal
B10
(Copyright (c) 2001, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)

Enron Corp.'s $2 billion agreement to sell its Portland General Electric unit
to Sierra Pacific Resources may be the latest casualty of the energy crisis
spreading across the Western part of the U.S.
There is only a "5% probability" that the sale will go through, Enron's chief
executive, Jeffrey Skilling, said Friday. Sierra Pacific has been unable to
sell its interest in certain generating assets, which it needed to do to
complete the purchase from the Houston-based energy and trading company.
Sierra Pacific agreed in November 1999 to buy Portland General for $2 billion
and the assumption of $1 billion of debt.
Confirmation that the deal was in trouble didn't come as a surprise to
investors because the financial picture has changed considerably as the
West's power problems have become more acute. When the pact was announced,
the companies said they expected a transaction to take place by mid-2000.
Sierra Pacific has been hurt by rising energy costs, which resulted in a
financial setback last year. Sierra, Reno, Nev., which operates two Nevada
utilities, said it incurred an unanticipated expense of $889 million in 2000
to purchase fuel and electricity on the open market. That produced a full
year 2000 loss of $39.8 million, or 51 cents a share. On Friday, the company
couldn't be reached for comment about its plans.
Mr. Skilling said he's "not in a particular rush" to sell Portland General,
which Enron acquired in 1996, although he said he would like to put the money
to work in higher-profit businesses. There are "several billion dollars worth
of assets" that Enron will sell "in the next few years" in its quest to
maximize its returns, he said.
Mr. Skilling, in an effort to quell worries that spurred a recent selloff in
the firm's stock, said Enron is moving more heavily into the trading of
liquified natural gas and is considering exercising options to acquire three
LNG vessels as well as to develop LNG gasification facilities in the Bahamas
and Venezuela. He said Enron Online, the firm's Internet-based trading
platform, soon will begin trading LNG contracts, as well.
The recent stock-price decline stemmed from jitters about Enron's plans for
its broadband business. The company, which pioneered the trading of
telecommunications bandwidth, plans to cut capital spending on its
fiber-optics network to about $250 million this year from an earlier
estimated budget of $750 million, Mr. Skilling said. He said the company has
found it can acquire much of the telecommunications capacity it needs to
expand its businesses through contracts with other owners rather than by
building additional network capacity, itself.
Mr. Skilling said Enron is reassigning some employees within the company, but
he denied speculation that Enron is planning layoffs in the broadband unit.
He said Enron is constantly shifting people around to meet the company's
growth needs.
Mr. Skilling said he still expects Enron to earn $1.70 to $1.75 per share
this year and said it was "crazy" that the company's stock has slid from
about $80 per share in early February to about $55 late last week. In 4 p.m.
Friday New York Stock Exchange composite trading, Enron rose $4.38, or 8%, to
$59.40. He said Enron's "core businesses" all are in "great shape." Despite
the fact California's utilities aren't paying their bills, Enron's credit
exposure in that state is declining, he said.

Copyright , 2000 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

National Desk
Backing Bush Pays Off for Coal Industry Energy: Mineral is seen as key to
halting power crisis. Officials also target pending regulatory rules.
From the Washington Post

03/26/2001
Los Angeles Times
Home Edition
A-10
Copyright 2001 / The Times Mirror Company

WASHINGTON -- In the last election, few businesses placed as big a bet on
Republicans as the coal industry, which gave 88 cents out of every dollar in
campaign contributions to GOP candidates or organizations. Two months into
the Bush administration, that wager has begun to pay off.
President Bush has jettisoned a campaign promise to require coal-burning
power plants to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, after heeding industry
warnings that such action could "kill coal." Now, industry officials who
worked for last week's Environmental Protection Agency decision to revoke a
Clinton administration crackdown on arsenic in drinking water are taking aim
at more than two dozen pending rules regulating substances from coal mine
dust and ozone to diesel particulates.
In the GOP-controlled Congress, lobbyists for coal companies, railroads and
electric utilities are mobilizing behind tax credits, subsidies and
regulatory exemptions for coal-burning utilities.
The emergence of coal from the political shadows is due in part to Bush's
conviction that the mineral, which is used to generate half the nation's
electricity, is crucial to preventing the spread of California's energy
crisis.
Coal's new strength also rests on the enhanced influence, in the aftermath of
last year's election, of a network of interests, such as electric utilities
and railroads, that strongly oppose lessening the country's dependence on
coal.
Meanwhile, coal, rail and power companies such as Peabody Holdings Inc.,
Burlington Northern Santa Fe and the Southern Co. provided funding last year
to start Americans for Balanced Energy Choices to develop grass-roots support
for coal.
"The market realities have changed, and the political dynamics have changed
in Washington," said the group's president, Steve Miller, a Democrat who was
Bill Clinton's campaign organizational chairman in Kentucky in 1992. "People
have no idea of the environmental improvement the coal industry has made."
To get that message across, Americans for Balanced Energy Choices has set up
a Web site and prepared a media advertising budget of several million dollars
to finance what Miller says will be "a longtime conversation with opinion
leaders across the country."
Electric utilities and their executives and employees last year gave $18.4
million to candidates and parties, of which $12.4 million went to
Republicans, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a campaign
research group. Southern Co., one of the nation's largest coal-burning power
producers, opposes the Kyoto, Japan, protocol, under which signatory nations,
including the United States, agreed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to
1990 levels. The Senate has never ratified the agreement.
In the House, Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), chairman of the subcommittee with
jurisdiction over clean air and energy, has vowed that legislation containing
such restrictions will "never" pass through his panel.
The chief executive of the Enron Corp. energy company, Kenneth Lay, one of
Bush's most generous campaign supporters, has urged the president to create a
trading system for carbon as a way of limiting emissions into the atmosphere.
But Lay was not given advance notice of Bush's decision ruling out mandatory
carbon controls, sources said.
A spokesman said Lay was "somewhat disappointed that we don't have a process
in place to deal with what he thinks is going to be a significant issue."

Copyright , 2000 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Abreast of the Market
Hunting for Signs That Stocks Are Bottoming
By E.S. Browning
Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

03/26/2001
The Wall Street Journal
C1
(Copyright (c) 2001, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)

It sounds like the latest gimmicky TV show: "Looking for the Bottom."
But that search is what is most on the minds of investors and stock-market
analysts today, after the Dow Jones Industrial Average dived for most of last
week and then, finally, rebounded Friday. The beaten-up Nasdaq Composite
Index, meanwhile, was able actually to scrape out an "up" week.
Longtime market watchers say there are telltale signs to look for, signaling
a market bottom. The problem is that different market declines end in
different ways.
"Some market bottoms are quiet and some are violent," notes analyst Sam Burns
of market-research group Ned Davis Research, in Venice, Fla. "The signals
aren't always consistent." The trick, he says, is to figure out which set of
signals apply to the market at hand.
In 1987, for example, the downturn ended with a crash, a one-day collapse of
22.6% in the Dow industrials, after which the worst was over. It was what
analysts call an extreme case of "capitulation," or the massive selling of
stocks by investors who suddenly fell out of love with them.
But then there are the examples of 1974, 1982 and 1990. "Those bear markets
died with a whimper, not a bang," says Steve Leuthold, chairman of
money-management firm Leuthold Group in Minneapolis. The selling just
gradually dried up, and one day, stocks turned around and started up again.
Mr. Leuthold says you can make some sense out of the seeming contradictions
by dividing bear markets into two varieties: those that are caused by
economic downturns and those that occur at other times.
"You get V-shaped bottoms typically when it is a noneconomic bear market, a
bear market that isn't related to a recession, the kind of thing we saw in
1987 and 1998," he says, referring in the latter case to the Russia-spurred
declines that left the industrials just shy of a bear-market drop by strict
definition. "But if you have a recession related to it, which I think is what
we have in this case, it takes a while. There is a base building and you have
the bear market kind of die with a whimper."
But if the current decline is going to end gradually and recover more slowly,
how will investors know that the worst is over? Messrs. Leuthold and Burns
and other market analysts have put together a group of signs they look for in
markets such as this one. Those include the levels of the price-to-earnings
ratios of the major indexes, the number of months since the economic downturn
began, and the tendency of major indexes to fall back and "retest" their lows
after they hit bottom.
All of these measures suggest that stocks could be at the beginning of a
bottom-building process now, these experts say. But, because "no one rings a
bell at the bottom," as Mr. Leuthold puts it, there isn't any guarantee that
the market won't fall somewhat farther before it finally hits bottom. Even if
the bottom is occurring right now, it could be weeks, or months, or longer,
before stocks begin any strong, lasting rally.
There certainly was plenty in last week's market activity to make the
optimists hope they were seeing a bottom. In less than three days, from their
intraday high on Tuesday through their intraday low on Thursday, the Dow
industrials fell 9.1%, or 913.40 points, to 9106.54. That pullback left the
index, for a few hours, down 22.8% from its record close of 11722.98, hit on
Jan. 14 of last year.
If the index had closed at that level, the industrials would have been
considered, by the most common definition of a 20% drop from a closing high,
to be in a bear market. But suddenly, about 80 minutes before Thursday's
close, the nosedive ended. By the end of the day Friday, when the index rose
115.30, it was 18.9% off the record, still outside bear-market territory by a
statistical hair.
It still was a painful week, with the industrials finishing down 3.2%, or
318.63 points for the week, at 9504.78. The fact that the selling finally
broadened out to the blue chips is being cited by some analysts as one more
sign that the selloff could be nearing its end. The Nasdaq composite, which
had taken the brunt of the selling for months, was able to advance last week
-- up 2%, or 37.77 points, to 1928.68 (on Friday it gained 30.98).
How likely is it that last week marked the bottom? One way to gauge that, Mr.
Leuthold says, is that stocks tend to bottom out halfway through an economic
slowdown. He thinks the economy began its slump in December, adding that the
average recession since World War II has lasted 11 months. If this decline
lasts that long, stocks might start to recover in May or June. If the
downturn is shorter, the recovery can come sooner, and vice versa.
Another measure that Mr. Leuthold looks at is valuation. In times of serious
economic decline, following periods of sharp inflation and high interest
rates, major stock indexes have fallen to the point that they were trading at
seven or eight times their stocks' earnings for the past 12 months. But in
times of less severe economic turmoil, such as the present, the indexes have
tended to fall to around 15 times trailing earnings.
This time, the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index still trades at about 22
times trailing earnings, but a broader group of 3,000 stocks that Mr.
Leuthold tracks trades at a median of only about 14 times earnings. That
makes him believe that many stocks are close to a bottom now. (He thinks that
the S&P 500 may never actually fall to a P/E of 15, because of the way its
makeup has been revised over the past few years.)
Stock strategist Thomas McManus of Banc of America Securities, for his part,
likes to look at indicators of investor "sentiment," which track whether
people are feeling bullish or bearish. The Market Vane indicator, which
measures the advice given by professional investment advisers, currently
shows that only 19% are bullish on S&P 500 futures, an unusually low level of
bullishness. When investor sentiment is that negative, many analysts believe,
stocks can begin to recover, because most of the selling already has run its
course.
A number of formerly bearish investors have turned bullish in the past few
weeks, believing that a bottom is at hand. Mr. Leuthold is one -- he even is
beginning to think that some technology stocks, notably semiconductor stocks,
may have fallen far enough to be cheap.
Another recently minted optimist is Robert Morris, chief investment officer
at Jersey City, N.J., fund-management group Lord Abbett, who until last year
considered technology stocks in particular to be greatly overvalued. He
points out that, in the past, stocks have tended to move up 25% in the 12
months after a third successive Federal Reserve rate cut. On top of that, his
models separately show the S&P 500 and the Dow industrials so undervalued
that they could rise as much as 25% in the next 12 months.
"We may bounce around for a while, but now we have a reason to own stocks
again," Mr. Morris says. He adds that one last indicator is a sign that bank
stocks -- very sensitive now to worries about bad debt -- have begun to
recover. "Once the market buys that and confirms it with better relative
strength for the banks, we will be ready to go," he says.
Many analysts think that it could still be some time before a true rally
kicks in. The market could go through a protracted period of consolidating
and retesting its lows. "That means that you don't have to be in a hurry to
buy right at the bottom; you have some time," Mr. Burns says.
---
Friday's Market Activity
Stocks turned higher across the board as a rough week for blue chips ended on
a positive note.
The big gains came out of some of the banking and brokerage-firm issues that
sold off earlier in the week as the market's fortunes worsened. Shares of
J.P. Morgan Chase added $2.80 to $41.71, Citigroup rose 2.25 to 42.85, and
Bank of America moved ahead 3.11 to 52.78.
Goldman Sachs Group improved 3.90 to 89.81, Merrill Lynch tacked on 3.25 to
57.70, and Lehman Brothers Holdings gained 2.55 to 67.35.
Shares of Applied Materials advanced 81 cents to 50.25 in Nasdaq Stock Market
trading, after the semiconductor-gear maker affirmed the company's
second-quarter outlook for revenue and earnings. That helped dispel some of
the doubt about capital spending in technology products and equipment that
has been at the heart of the market's recent distress.
Motorola also made progress, adding 31 cents to 15.99, after the cellphone
and chip manufacturer announced plans to cut jobs to further reduce its
costs.
Shares of Tibco Software, which came into the session off the 52-week low of
7.22 reached Thursday, climbed 2.41 to 10.44 on Nasdaq, after the
enterprise-software producer posted fiscal first-quarter earnings that beat
analysts' lowered estimates.
The industrial average also got a big push from its software and
personal-computer makers. The groups started to rally Thursday on talk from
chip manufacturer Micron Technology that some of the inventory problems in
the supply chain had been alleviated. Microsoft advanced 2.56 to 56.56 in
Nasdaq trading, while International Business Machines climbed 4.58 to 93.68.
Micron, which rose 11% Thursday, tacked on 2.13 to 48.83 Friday.
Nokia gained 1.46 to 26.46. The Finnish handset maker said it will buy back
as many as 50 million shares of its stock.
Quest Diagnostics rose 3.88 to 82.92, while Laboratory Corp. of America
improved 7.18 to 119. Thomas Weisel Partners started coverage of several of
the companies that provide laboratory testing services, including these
names.
Gemstar International added 6.25 to 35.19 on Nasdaq. The Pasadena, Calif.,
provider of electronic-program guides and video-recording systems agreed to
provide interactive television services to Comcast Cable's Comcast Cable
Communications subscribers. Comcast, King of Prussia, Pa., eased 1.81 to
38.69 in Nasdaq trading.
Nucor lost 81 cents to 40.46. The Charlotte, N.C., metals and mining concern
reduced its first-quarter earnings expectations, citing a weak pricing
environment for steel products and what it called "relatively flat" sales
volume.
Immunex slid 7.38 to 11.50 on Nasdaq, slumping to a 52-week low. The Seattle
biopharmaceuticals developer stopped its late-stage clinical trials on
patients who suffer chronic heart failure. Were the tests to have been
successful, Immunex could have doubled the market for its blockbuster drug,
Enbrel, which is used to treat patients with rheumatoid arthritis. American
Home Products, which owns 41% of Immunex, declined 1.10 to 54.40.
Enron gained 4.38 to 59.40. The energy provider and commodities trader perked
up following losses this week after company officials, on a conference call
with investors, reiterated the Houston concern's existing earnings forecasts.
New York Stock Exchange volume totaled 1,360,250,410 shares, compared with
1,723,955,410 Thursday.
-- Robert O'Brien

Copyright , 2000 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Entertainment + Technology (A Special Report)
It's About Time: A growing number of services let viewers pick what they want
to watch, when they want to watch it
By Martin Peers

03/26/2001
The Wall Street Journal
R14
(Copyright (c) 2001, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)

When Christopher Lindsell wants to watch a movie nowadays, the 29-year-old
Cincinnati research scientist plops down on his couch with his wife and son
and checks out Intertainer.TV, a new entertainment service available via
computer.
With Intertainer, Mr. Lindsell can order a movie in advance, watch it when he
wants and even pause it while he gets more snacks -- all with a click of the
mouse.
"We really like the convenience," says Mr. Lindsell. "We like the ability to
click a few buttons, see a preview, see a brief description. We have children
in the household, so we like to see whether it contains adult content. We can
then sit down as a family. [We] don't have to plan ahead."
Mr. Lindsell is one of about 2,400 people in the Cincinnati area able to
order movies or television shows from Intertainer, which delivers programming
via souped-up telephone lines or digital cable through the computer to the TV
set. Viewers can order everything from editions of "Meet the Press" or "NBC
Nightly News" an hour after they're aired to recently released movies such as
"Gladiator" and older films, for prices ranging from 75 cents to $3.99. The
programs run like they're in a videocassette recorder: Viewers can stop,
start and rewind them as much as they want within 24 hours of the initial
order.
Intertainer is one of a number of emerging electronic-entertainment services
that allow consumers to order movies and TV shows and watch them at their
leisure. But Intertainer Inc.'s service has a head start in getting
programming. The Culver City, Calif., company has signed long-term supply
deals with several Hollywood studios, such as the Warner Brothers unit of AOL
Time Warner Inc. and Vivendi Universal SA's Universal Pictures, while its
rivals are still in negotiations on such deals. Intertainer also has deals
for TV programming from General Electric Co.'s NBC, as well as several cable
networks such as Discovery Channel and A&E Television Networks, which
includes the History Channel and the Biography Channel.
Intertainer is a closely held company whose investors include its founders,
Chairman Richard Baskin and Chief Executive Jonathan Taplin, as well as big
companies like Microsoft Corp., Intel Corp., Comcast Corp. and NBC.
Right now, Intertainer is available only to a small number of people in
Cincinnati, through Internet-access company Zoomtown.com, a unit of Broadwing
Inc., a telecommunications concern based in Cincinnati. But Intertainer
expects the service to be available in many more major markets over the next
few months.
The service is similar in some ways to the pay-per-view options offered on
cable or satellite-TV systems, giving consumers the ability to pick a movie
they want to watch for a fee. Pay-per-view, however, offers only a few movies
at fixed times, whereas Intertainer allows consumers to scroll through a list
of several hundred movies or TV shows and order one immediately.
Intertainer isn't offered over the Internet, like many of the other services
such as SightSound.com from SightSound Technologies of Mount Lebanon, Pa. The
company decided against making its service available on the Internet largely
to ensure its movies and TV shows had the best picture quality and because of
concerns from the major Hollywood studios over rampant illegal copying on the
Web.
Instead, the company sends its signals over private computer networks,
connecting to homes either by high-speed phone lines known as digital
subscriber lines or by digital cable. Consumers can buy a device that
switches the signal from their computer to their TV set. Intertainer has a
Web site that offers music videos and movie trailers to promote the main
service, and allows for some e-commerce opportunities, like selling albums.
Customers getting Intertainer through DSL, currently the most common way to
get the service, usually would log onto Intertainer through their computer,
clicking on an Intertainer icon on the DSL provider's home Web page that gets
them into a private computer network. After typing in a password, customers
first choose a movie genre (comedies, dramas, action) and then pick a film in
that genre. Consumers find the movie they want to watch, order with a click
of a mouse and get billed either through their credit card or their DSL
provider. (Cable operators would likely make Intertainer available as an
added feature of digital cable, available through a set-top box with remote
control.)
For encrypting and playing programming, Intertainer is using Microsoft's
Windows Media software. The software giant also will integrate the service in
its Microsoft TV software, which is being put in set-top boxes for
interactive-TV services of some cable and satellite-TV operators. That
integration makes it easier for these companies to offer Intertainer.
Supplementing revenue from movie and TV orders, Intertainer aims to generate
one-third of its revenue from advertising and e-commerce. The Web site allows
consumers to play a music video and then click onto a site selling the
related album. Intertainer also has interactive features built into some of
its advertising, enabling viewers to get information and make a purchase.
While consumers who have used Intertainer or other movies-on-demand services
are enthusiastic, there are still big hurdles to overcome before the services
are widely available.
Intertainer is facing plenty of competition, both on and off the Web. Cable
operators like AOL Time Warner and Cox Communications Inc. are planning to
offer their own service. Some of the Hollywood studios are planning to launch
their own Web-based services, while some independent Web concerns are
offering movies on demand, although with a very limited number of movies.
But Intertainer is ahead of most of its rivals when it comes to programming.
Most cable operators are still negotiating long-term deals. And the
independent Web-based services are finding it difficult to get movies from
major studios because of worries about illegal copying. Programming's
importance was highlighted earlier this month when another potential rival, a
joint venture of Blockbuster Inc. and Enron Corp., abandoned its efforts
because of Blockbuster's difficulty in negotiating movie-supply deals.
Meanwhile, Intertainer currently offers about 300 movies and 25 different
types of TV shows at any one time, though its programming deals give it
access to between 8,000 and 10,000 movies. However, making all the movies
available simultaneously would be prohibitively expensive. Intertainer
expects new computer-network designs and the declining cost of data storage
will enable it to increase the number of movies offered at the same time
within a couple of years.
Also putting a crimp on movies-on-demand services' offerings are major
Hollywood studios. Because of concerns of illegal copying, the studios have
been reluctant to provide movies and shows. Avoiding the Internet altogether
has helped Intertainer get more programming, but it has forced the company to
rely on phone companies or cable operators to offer its service. And most of
the programming available on Intertainer is at least several months old,
reflecting Hollywood's desire not to threaten the mountains of revenue they
get from video rental chains by giving Intertainer movies before they're
offered on video.
As a result, Intertainer -- like other movies-on-demand services -- doesn't
offer movies until after they've been in the video stores. That is likely to
reduce the number of orders for Intertainer, which gives an undisclosed share
of its program fee to its entertainment providers. Mr. Lindsell, for
instance, says his family also rents movies from video-rental stores but
would use Intertainer as his "primary source" once the service has "more
diverse product" available.
Agreements with cable networks licensing their shows to Intertainer come with
similar caveats. When A&E Television Networks agreed in January to provide
programming to Intertainer, David Zagin, senior vice president of affiliate
sales, says the deal was limited to older titles in the company's library --
which could be anywhere from a few months to a few years old. Offering newly
aired programs for Intertainer's on-demand service could reduce the need for
consumers to watch the networks on cable.
"We never want to give people the impression you don't have to have A&E and
History" on cable, Mr. Zagin says. A&E is owned by Walt Disney Co., Hearst
Corp. and NBC.
Discovery Networks has a similar stance. Discovery, a unit of Discovery
Communications Inc. of Bethesda, Md., supplies "library" products, shows
roughly six months old, from its networks, which include Discovery Channel,
the Learning Channel, Animal Planet and the Travel Channel. These shows
include Discovery Channel's "Ultimate Guide," a travel-adventure series
focusing on exotic destinations like the Amazon. David Karp, a senior vice
president of interactive television for Discovery Networks U.S., says the
on-demand offering is a "companion" business to the primary business of
running its cable networks.
"We are not going to do anything that will detract from our programming
networks," he says.
NBC's deal does give Intertainer the right to offer slightly delayed editions
of "NBC Nightly News" and "Meet the Press." But the agreement also gives
Intertainer programming from NBC's library, including episodes of "Saturday
Night Live," movies of the week, comedies and dramas. The shows could date as
far back as 20 years. Indeed, NBC doesn't want to threaten the value of newer
shows in the hugely profitable television syndication market, where
independent TV stations buy programming, says a person close to the network.
But even with the content constraints, Intertainer's Mr. Taplin believes the
company can build a commercial service from the programming it has. Mr.
Taplin says the company needs about half a million subscribers ordering at
least one movie every three months to break even. It now has about $30
million in the bank, enough to keep the service running until the end of
2002, though Mr. Taplin hopes to raise more money from existing and new
investors.
Reaching that half-a-million target will largely depend on Intertainer's
ability to get into homes as well as beat the competition. Lydia Loizides, an
analyst in the digital-TV group of New York-based Jupiter Research, says
Intertainer is "very solid on the content-partnership side" and had a better
than 50-50 chance of meeting its target. She notes, however, that cable
operators and telephone companies are planning to "go after the same dollars
that are in consumers' wallets, so who gets there first is something to be
determined."
So far, most cable operators are opting to offer their own version of movies
on demand, licensing the movies through an industry-owned consortium or
through other services. The only cable operator to be actively working with
Intertainer is Comcast, one of the nation's biggest cable operators. Comcast
is currently testing just the movies-on-demand part of Intertainer's service
as an additional feature on its digital-cable service. It's unclear whether
Comcast will offer Intertainer once it has completed the test, say people
familiar with the situation.
All that means is that Intertainer will likely have to rely mostly on
telephone companies' DSL services in order for the service to grow. In
Cincinnati, Zoomtown President Michael O'Brien says he plans to expand the
offering to all Zoomtown's 40,000 DSL customers in the first half of this
year. Qwest Communications International Inc. of Denver also is testing
Intertainer's service on its DSL lines and plans to introduce it in half a
dozen markets, including Seattle, Portland, Ore., Denver and Phoenix. Mr.
Taplin hopes Qwest will roll it out commercially by April, although a Qwest
spokeswoman wouldn't confirm the timing of the rollout.
Mr. Taplin also hopes Intertainer will be available in major markets like New
York "by the end of the summer" through telephone companies like Verizon
Communications Inc.'s DSL service. A Verizon spokesman says the company was
doing technical trials -- offering "many" video-on-demand services, including
Intertainer, free to some of its customers. The spokesman says Verizon "won't
speculate" on when these services would be commercially available.
A major rollout of Intertainer would help persuade studios and networks to
give up more timely content. Mr. Taplin says getting newer movies and TV
shows will require "a large market of people" ordering movies so those in
Hollywood can see they can make money from Intertainer and services like it.
"It's an evolutionary process," he says.
---
Mr. Peers is a staff reporter in The Wall Street Journal's New York bureau.

Copyright , 2000 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Entertainment + Technology (A Special Report)
Overview --- Thumbs Up: What makes a good entertainment site click?
By Bruce Orwall

03/26/2001
The Wall Street Journal
R6
(Copyright (c) 2001, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)

You are forgiven for wondering whether the Web entertainment revolution has
ended before it even began.
A legion of online companies that once seemed to herald the dawn of a new era
in entertainment has instead crashed and burned during the past year, echoing
the cruel fate of Internet companies generally. It didn't matter whether the
venture was a scrappy start-up or one backed by marquee entertainment moguls
-- it seemed as if every attempt to convert the Web into the next big medium
for movies, television shows, music or original Internet creations was doomed
to failure.
But amid the devastation, pink slips and worthless stock options, a simple
truth may be getting lost: Some of this stuff actually works. And it's going
to get better.
There may not yet be business models that can support today's Web
entertainment experiments. But that's not stopping consumers from using their
computers to listen to music, watch movie previews, buy concert and movie
tickets and gather information about even the most obscure rock bands, films
and books.
And the offerings are only going to improve as broadband access increases --
and the entertainment industry digests the lessons from last year's shakeout.
Many companies are abandoning murky plans to create content specifically for
the Web and instead are focusing on what does seem to work online. For
instance, using the Internet to build fan hype for a movie. Or delivering the
fabled "movies on demand" via phone or cable lines. Or coming up with ways to
charge people for music downloads.
"For consumers who have broadband," says Rob Glaser, chairman and chief
executive of RealNetworks Inc., which makes online video software, "this will
be the first year that you can buy [online entertainment] that is comparable
to what you can get in the video store . . . . This will be a year when
people will say, `Hey, I get this.'"
In some sense, the potential of online entertainment has been obscured by
both the failure and the legal entanglements of the past year. The music
world stands as a striking example. A year ago, the now-notorious service
called Napster was just coming on the nation's radar, providing the first
glimpse of how a new concept called "file sharing" could allow computer users
all over the world to swap music files in the MP3 format. Of course, almost
none of those songs were being shared with any regard for the rights of the
copyright holders, causing an outcry from major record labels and some
artists that was more deafening than a Korn record. The labels prevailed in
an epic court battle that now threatens Napster's very existence.
Yet even as Napster struggles to get back on its feet, it has already proved
a big point: A lot of people are really interested in downloading music. They
can burn those MP3 files onto their own homemade customized CDs on which the
music can be arranged as they prefer. Though teenagers have used Napster's
file-sharing capability to fill up their hard drives with the latest hot
singles by Jennifer Lopez or Eminem, so far it's hard to say conclusively
that it has stopped them from buying those artists' CDs.
In any case, the labels realize that there's no turning back now, which is
why Bertelsmann AG's BMG unit entered into a partnership with Napster meant
to legitimize the service and bring it into the mainstream. Even the major
labels -- which have sneered at the notion of getting into business with
their nemesis -- are slogging through the tortuous technical and legal
problems that would allow them to launch their own digital downloading
services. When they're not busy suing Web upstarts like Napster or MP3.com,
media industry leaders like Vivendi Universal SA Chief Executive Jean-Marie
Messier publicly predict that, someday soon, we'll all be downloading Shania
Twain songs straight from the Web to our wireless mobile phones, which will
also store and play the music back.
Consumers seem ready for this kind of flexibility. They're experimenting with
other forms of online music, such as Web-based radio stations that offer a
much wider variety of music than most over-the-air commercial stations. Not
to be left out, traditional broadcasters are scrambling to put their stations
or radio networks on the Web, too -- often with appealing results, like the
extensive archive of news programs maintained by National Public Radio.
Web fan frenzies are by no means limited to the music world. Fans of popular
movie franchises like "Star Wars" have taken matters into their own hands,
creating detailed and frequently innovative shrines to their favorite icons.
As chronicled elsewhere in this issue, sites like TheForce.net have shown
that a loyal audience can be built around Web sites that feed fan obsessions.
This has not escaped the notice of the movie studios. After the addicting Web
site for "The Blair Witch Project" helped turn that film into a phenomenon
two years ago, the movie business struggled in its efforts to use the
Internet as a tool for creating excitement about a film. But lately,
Hollywood has been showing signs of getting its act together.
Now some studios have begun to do essentially what movie fans have been doing
for a while -- creating rich, immersive Web sites built around some
high-profile properties, aimed at stoking interest among existing fans while
also attracting newcomers. The best recent example of this is the Web site
for New Line Cinema's coming "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, which aims to keep
users coming by promising that new interviews, pictures or bits of
information will be introduced almost daily for the next three years.
The idea is to make the site addictive to potential movie audiences, in the
same way that "Rings" author J.R.R. Tolkien sucked teenagers into the fantasy
world of his novels. Hollywood is trying to create the same kind of
experience for unknown properties as well, sometimes starting months before a
film's release. "Tomcats," the first film from former Disney Studio chief Joe
Roth's new Revolution Studios, has had a robust Web presence for months, even
using its site to cast a couple of bit roles in the film and follow the
exploits of the wannabes who won them. The teen comedy's imminent release
means that the industry will soon get a good notion of whether it's worth the
trouble to spend so much time and effort planting a movie into teenagers'
consciousness before it opens.
The studios now habitually show their preview trailers online -- and because
the software that allows video to play on your computer is getting better,
the picture and sound are more compelling all the time. The limitations of
current technology are still frustrating, as the picture that people see when
they play a video clip on their computer is still not even big enough to fill
up half a computer screen. But, especially for those with broadband
connections, the clips now play more smoothly and with fewer interruptions.
Part of the reason the studios are exploring the Web's possibilities as a
promotional tool is that the medium has flopped as a venue for original
content. A big lesson of the past year has been that it's difficult for
original Web entertainment to exist without the additional financial
advantage of being distributed in other media as well, so that it can
generate other revenue for its creators.
"Of the things you saw with [failed online-entertainment firms] is that it's
difficult to find a business model where you create original content for the
Web," says Walt Disney Co. strategic planning chief Peter Murphy. "But using
the Web as an ancillary form of distribution can be very powerful . . . .
It's a wonderful form of direct delivery to the consumer."
Indeed, the shakeout in Web technology companies has already weeded out many
of the ambitious upstarts that wanted to air original animation or short
live-action films on the Web. And Hollywood was atwitter last summer when
Pop.com -- the high-profile venture formed jointly by DreamWorks SKG and
Imagine Entertainment -- failed to even launch its much-ballyhooed site.
Pop's backers went into the Web venture thinking that short-form
entertainment created by DreamWorks' Steven Spielberg, Imagine's Ron Howard
and others would draw a big audience and provide a forum for top Hollywood
talent to devise new characters, which could then be spun into TV shows or
movies. But after a year of frustrating attempts to devise a business model
that would support such a venture, the Pop gang threw in the towel, promising
to return when the medium matured.
But some sites that show original films, like Ifilm Corp.'s Ifilm.com, have
survived; and, in some cases, companies have decided to improve their chances
by merging, as when Atom Corp. and its AtomFilm.com site were sold to
Macromedia Inc.'s Shockwave.com to form the new company that, in theory, is
better suited to keeping up with future competition. The start-ups that have
stayed alive have frequently been smart enough to make sure they are not
dependent solely on revenue from the Web; Atom, for example, licenses its
short films to airlines and local TV stations, too.
Whether they make it over the long haul remains to be seen. In fact, there is
still a good chance that all of the efforts to date to make filmed
entertainment work on the Web amount to little more than road kill on the
path to the day when the major entertainment companies get their act together
and figure out how to deliver their valuable movie and TV properties via the
new medium.
Several ventures are being prepared quite aggressively by the big media
companies, aimed at readying the Internet as a platform for digitally
delivering films to people's homes, either via phone or cable lines or by
wireless means. One is headed by Sony Corp., which has already conducted some
consumer tests involving films downloaded from the Web. Another effort, led
by Walt Disney in partnership with News Corp.'s 20th Century Fox, aims to do
the same thing via Disney's Movies.com site. Disney is also weighing whether
to move ahead with another project, dubbed MovieBox, that would also deliver
movies on demand, but this time via a wireless technology that doesn't
require the user to have a broadband Internet connection. Disney hasn't yet
decided whether to proceed.
A Los Angeles company called Intertainer Inc. has plans to deliver music and
movies on the Web, too. But Viacom Inc.'s Blockbuster unit and Enron Corp.
recently dissolved a highly touted joint venture, though both companies say
they will pursue video-on-demand on their own.
Disney's Internet efforts in general demonstrate both the promise and the
frustration of getting a foothold in the new medium. The company's attempt to
compete in the portal business, called Go.com, was a fiasco from the moment
it made its debut in 1999. Already too far behind Yahoo! Inc. and others in
the portal race, Disney attempted to narrow Go's focus to entertainment,
recreation and leisure. That, too, was a bust, and Disney recently folded Go
altogether, marking the embarrassing conclusion of a saga that probably
should have never begun.
Yet Go.com's failure has masked progress within Disney's Web unit, like its
ESPN.com operation, which only stands to get better with the rise of
broadband and its enhanced ability to use video and audio clips. ESPN.com,
for example, will soon unveil a product called MySportsCenter, based on the
ESPN cable channel's popular news program "SportsCenter." MySportsCenter will
allow ESPN to deliver an online package of the day's sports highlights
tailored to each user's interests and favorite teams. If you tell ESPN.com
that your world revolves around pro hoops star Allen Iverson or baseball's
Alex Rodriguez, the site plans to give you a package of clips based on how
those stars and their teams did in the previous day's games.
---
Mr. Orwall, a staff reporter in The Wall Street Journal's Los Angeles bureau,
served as contributing editor of this report.
---
Journal Link: How has the Web changed the way you use and shop for
entertainment? Join a discussion in the online Journal at
WSJ.com/JournalLinks.
--- Digital Entertainment Network:
Online "network" with episodic shows

Pop.com:
Animated and live-action entertainment shorts

Icebox.com:
Web animation studio

Z.com:
Short films and animations

Go.com:
Disney's Web portal

Checkout.com:
Online music e-tailer

Stan Lee Media:
Digital entertainment studio

Scour.com:
Music file-sharing service

Copyright , 2000 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Report on Business: The Wall Street Journal
What's News
United States
Wall Street Journal

03/26/2001
The Globe and Mail
Metro
B8
"All material Copyright (c) Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc. and its
licensors. All rights reserved."

Enron Corp.'s $2-billion (U.S.) agreement to sell its Portland General
Electric unit to Sierra Pacific Resources may be the latest casualty of
Western U.S. energy crisis. There is only a "5-per-cent probability" that the
sale will proceed, Enron's chief executive officer, Jeffrey Skilling, said.
Sierra Pacific has been unable to sell its interest in certain generating
assets, which it needed to do to complete the purchase from the Houston-based
energy and trading company. Mr. Skilling said he's "not in a particular rush"
to sell Portland General, which Enron acquired in 1996, although he said he
would like to put the money to work in higher-profit businesses. In Friday
New York Stock Exchange composite trading, Enron rose $4.38 to $59.40.

Copyright , 2000 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

USA: Enron's deal to sell Portland General seen dead-WSJ.

03/26/2001
Reuters English News Service
(C) Reuters Limited 2001.

NEW YORK, March 26 (Reuters) - Enron Corp.'s $2 billion agreement to sell its
Portland General Electric unit to Sierra Pacific Resources may fall through,
the Wall Street Journal reported in its online edition Monday.
There is only a "5 percent probability" that the sale will go through, Enron
's chief executive, Jeffrey Skilling, was reported as saying on Friday.
Sierra Pacific has been unable to sell its interest in certain generating
assets, which it needed to do to complete the purchase from the Houston-based
energy and trading company, the paper said.
Sierra Pacific agreed in November 1999 to buy Portland General for $2 billion
and the assumption of $1 billion of debt, the paper noted.
Enron shares finished up $4.31 at $59.40 on the New York Stock Exchange
Friday. The stock has a 52-week high of $90.56 and a 52-week low of $51.55.
Sierra Pacific shares, meanwhile, finished up 4 cents at $12.80, also on the
Big Board. Sierra Pacific stock has a 52-week high of $19.44 and a 52-week
low of $10.57.

Copyright , 2000 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Enron's 2 bln usd sale of PGE unit unlikely to go through - CEO

03/26/2001
AFX News
(c) 2001 by AFP-Extel News Ltd

LONDON (AFX) - Enron Corp's 2 bln usd sale of Portland General Electric unit
to Sierra Pacific Resources is unlikely to go through, Enron chief executive
Jeffrey Skilling said according to the Wall Street Journal.
Sierra Pacific has been unable to sell its interest in certain generating
assets, which it needed to do to complete the purchase from the Houston-based
energy and trading company, the newspaper said.
Skilling said he's "not in a particular rush" to sell Portland General,
although he said he would like to put the money to work in higher-profit
businesses.
There are "several billion dollars worth of assets" that Enron will sell "in
the next few years" in its quest to maximize its returns, he said.
Skilling said Enron is moving more heavily into the trading of liquefied
natural gas and is considering exercising options to acquire three LNG
vessels as well as to develop LNG gasification facilities in the Bahamas and
Venezuela. He said Enron Online, the firm's Internet-based trading platform,
soon will begin trading LNG contracts, as well.
Skilling also said the company plans to cut capital spending on its
fiber-optics network to about 250 mln usd this year from an earlier estimated
budget of 750 mln. He said the company can acquire much of the
telecommunications capacity it needs to expand its businesses through
contracts with other owners rather than by building additional network
capacity itself.
Despite the fact California's utilities aren't paying their bills, Enron's
credit exposure in that state is declining, he added.
vh/jfr For more information and to contact AFX: www.afxnews.com and
www.afxpress.com

Copyright , 2000 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

INDIA'S ESSAR MAY OPT OUT OF SHELL LNG VENTURE

03/26/2001
Asia Pulse
(c) Copyright 2001 Asia Pulse PTE Ltd.

NEW DELHI, March 26 Asia Pulse - The Essar Group is considering pulling out
of the Royal Dutch Shell promoted Rs 23 billion (US$493.7 million) Hazira
Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) Terminal project in the western state of Gujarat
due to "overcrowding" of gas projects on the western coast.
"We are having a rethink on the venture as the region may not be able to
absorb the amount of gas coming by way of proposed projects," Essar Group
Chairman Shashi Ruia told PTI.
Essar, being the possible buyer of LNG for its 515 MW power plant at Hazira,
has a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Shell India for equity
participation in the project.
Besides, the five million tonnes Essar-Shell LNG terminal, LNG import
facilities of more than 12.5 million tonnes by various consortias are being
put up in Gujarat, Ruia said adding Gujarat and up-North won't be able to
absorb such an inflow of natural gas.
While Petronet LNG, a joint venture of Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), Bharat
Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL), Gas Authority of India Ltd (GAIL) and Oil
and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) is setting up a five million tonne import
facility at Dahej, British Gas is putting up 2.5 million tonnes LNG terminal
at Pipavav.
Reliance is also setting up a five million tonnes LNG terminal at Jamnagar at
an estimated cost of Rs 45 billion.
Ruia said two projects in Maharashtra - five million tonnes capacity LNG
terminal of Enron and 3.5 million tonnes import facility of GAIL-TotalFinaElf
at Trombay - would saturate the demand in the region.
(PTI) 26-03 1756

Copyright , 2000 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.


Did I read this right? Are you permanently leaving the company?

Berney

-----Original Message-----
From: Kaminski, Vince J
Sent: Wednesday, January 16, 2002 4:42 PM
To: Aucoin, Berney C.
Subject: RE: Exotica, etc.

Berney
I fully agree. I don't want any complications after I leave Enron. Please, ask Jim Fallon to ask more specific letter. I am out Thu. Thanks,
Vince
--------------------------vince kaminski


Attached is a report showing year 2000 experienceENRON statistics for EES.
Also outlined are EES deals that Kim Frumkin has shared with us will close or
have closed in 2000.   Along with those deals, I have reported the experience
ENRON V.I.P. resources that participated in these EES deal specific visits.
The second attachment contains two charts showing experienceENRON visitor
volume segmented by each Enron business unit and by the type of visitors we
work with.

We believe that Enron resources are vital to delivering a successful
Enron/EES experience and we want to share with our experienceENRON V.I.P.
resources how their participation contributes to EES reaching its goals.
For performance feedback purposes and to help those resources better
understand the magnitude of the deals they are contributing to, we would like
to request from EES origination, an estimated value for the attached closed
deals.   So that we meet the performance feedback deadline, please let us
know by Monday, 11/20 if this information can be shared for feedback purposes
only.

On behalf of Enron Corp. we look forward to partnering with EES in 2001 and
helping EES reach their 2001 goals.

Thank you.
Carrie


Jim Steffes asked me to call Seabron Adamson to get his take on what a "Top
5" list should include for California.  Seabron sent me the attached list,
which, as you will notice, is just his first cut on this.  I thought it might
be helpful for everyone for the conference call today -- but please remember
that this is really just a first attempt at putting the problems down on
paper.

Sarah

---------------------- Forwarded by Sarah Novosel/Corp/Enron on 09/15/2000
11:39 AM ---------------------------

"Seabron Adamson" <seabron.adamson@frontier-economics.com> on 09/13/2000
02:32:30 PM
To: <snovose@enron.com>
cc:

Subject: California "Top Five" list

Sarah:

Please find attached a "top five" list on California market reform, as
requested, with some annotations on why I think these changes would be
beneficial etc. It is quite rough - not much more than a brain dump really -
but can serve as a basis for discussion.

Have a look and see what you think. Perhaps we should set up a call to
discuss sometime later this week?

Seabron

This e-mail, and any attachments thereto, is intended only for use by the
addressee(s) named herein and may contain legally privileged and/or
confidential information.  If you are not the intended recipient of this
e-mail, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or
copying of this e-mail, and any attachments thereto, is strictly prohibited.
If you have received this e-mail in error, please immediately notify me at
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www.frontier-economics.com

 - 00-09-12 SA California market reform top five list.doc


Scott,

Thanks for the help with Dave Duran.  He wants to offer me a job, and he sent
me to talk to Louise Kitchen today, which I did.  She told me that she wanted
to check my references.  I was wondering if you would be willing to drop her
a note on me.  She would probably put a lot more stock in your view than in
most of the other guys I have worked with in EI and EBS.  Thanks, I
appreciate it.

Steve


To Market Participants and Scheduling Coordinators:

The ISO received a request for a subpoena from the Senate Select Committee
to Investigate Price Manipulation of the Wholesale Energy Markets.  The
request is attached.  The ISO will keep Market Participants appraised of
developments related to the subpoena.
Jeanne M. Sol?
Regulatory Counsel
California ISO
(916) 608-7144
____________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________

The Foregoing e-Mail Communication (Together With Any Attachments Thereto)
Is Intended For The Designated Recipient(s) Only. Its Terms May Be
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Of This Message Is Strictly Prohibited.

 - Investi1.pdf


Jon,

I had a glance over the written paper from Sullivan & Cromwell as to FX
Transactions, and it seems to me that there would be fewer US regulatory
issues (should there be any), if we were to use MG Brokers Inc, the FCM
entity.  Are there any other reasons why we would not want to use this entity?

[Mark/Alan/Marcus - I have separately sent you by email the Sullivan &
Cromwell paper]

Thanks.
Justin

---------------------- Forwarded by Justin Boyd/LON/ECT on 09/08/2000 18:49
---------------------------

Jon Barrett@MGLTD
09/08/2000 16:37
To: Justin Boyd/LON/ECT@ECT, Janine Juggins/LON/ECT@ECT
cc: Trena McFarland/LON/ECT@ECT, Kevin Rhodes/MGLTD_London/MGLTD@MGLTD, Sid
Tipples/MGLTD_London/MGLTD@MGLTD, Andrew Cornfield/LON/ECT@ECT

Subject: Re: FX Transactions

---------------------- Forwarded by Jon Barrett/MGLTD_London/MGLTD on
09/08/2000 16:36 ---------------------------
From: Alfred Pennisi@MGUSA on 09/08/2000 06:50 EDT
To: Jon Barrett/MGLTD_London/MGLTD@MGLTD
cc:

Subject: Re: FX Transactions

Jon,

My suggestion would be for the FX business be run out of a NON FCM firm in
the states (NY) since it is a non-regulated product.

If you have an questions please call me at x5845.

regards,

Alfred Pennisi
MG London Inc.
520 Madison Avenue
28th Floor
New York, NY 10022
Tel: 212.715.5845
E-mail: alfred.pennisi@mglondon.com