Tata in talks to buy Enron's Dabhol power plant - FT
AFX News, 10/14/01
Qatar, Dolphin to sign final mega gas deal "shortly"
Agence France-Presse, 10/14/01
NATURAL GAS BIG IN STATE'S FUTURE > NEW PIPELINES ARE PROPOSED TO FILL NEEDS
South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 10/14/01
Debt load smothers Polaroid; Bankruptcy filing pointing to sale, firings
Boston Herald. 10/13/01
WORLD NEWS - Enron wins court injunction - NEWS DIGEST.
Financial Times (U.K. edition), 10/13/01



Tata in talks to buy Enron's Dabhol power plant - FT

10/14/2001
AFX News
(c) 2001 by AFP-Extel News Ltd

TOKYO (AFX-ASIA) - Tata has held exploratory talks to buy Enron's power plant in Dabhol, India, the Financial Times reported. 
Tata Power has written to the Indian government expressing interest in the plant, though any deal would have to address the high tariff structure and interest rate burden on the project, the newspaper said.
It is understood that Enron is considering an offer price of about 80 cents to the dollar, it said. 
Enron declined on Friday to confirm it was in talks with Tata, but said the best solution would be for the Indian government, or one of its Indian financial backers, to take on Dabhol. 
Tata Power recently held talks with Indian financial institutions involved with the project. Officials from Dabhol Power Company, Enron's Indian arm, also attended. 
About 70 pct of the Dabhol plant was funded by debt, with Indian financial institutions providing 1.4 bln usd and foreign lenders the balance. 
Enron's Indian unit defaulted in September on interest payments to international lenders, blaming stopped payments by the Maharashtra State Electricity Board, the plant's sole client. 
tb/pb For more information and to contact AFX: www.afxnews.com and www.afxpress.com

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

Qatar, Dolphin to sign final mega gas deal "shortly"

10/14/2001
Agence France-Presse
(Copyright 2001)

ABU DHABI, Oct 14 (AFP) - Qatar and Dolphin Energy will sign the final development and production sharing agreement (DPSA) for a multi- billion-dollar project to deliver Qatari gas abroad "shortly", the UAE Offsets Group (UOG) said Sunday. 
"The development and production sharing agreement (DPSA) with Qatar Petroleum (QP) is due to be signed shortly," UOG said in a statement.
The state-run UOG added that Dolphin Energy will select by early next year an oil major to become a strategic partner in the project. 
"Over the coming weeks, the international oil companies will be given additional data and invited to submit their offers by late December. One of them is scheduled to be selected in early 2002," UOG said. 
UOG held separate negotiations last week with five shortlisted oil majors -- Conoco, ExxonMobil and Occidental Petroleum of the United States, BP International and the Anglo-Dutch firm Shell -- to replace the US firm Enron Corp., which withdrew from the venture in May and transferred its 24.5 percent stake to UOG. 
Enron's role was to build a 350-kilometre (220-mile) pipeline under the Gulf between Qatar and Abu Dhabi. 
The Dolphin project aims to create a regional grid taking gas from Qatar to Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Oman and eventually Pakistan. 
In a project estimated at an overall cost of up to 10 billion dollars, the gas is to be transported by undersea pipeline from Qatar to the Abu Dhabi coast. 
The gas will be distributed inside Abu Dhabi and neighbouring Dubai through existing networks and will be transported between the two through a pipeline for which technical bids have already been submitted. 
The pipeline will then continue overland to Oman and from there to Pakistan through an undersea pipeline. The extension to Pakistan is expected to cost up to an additional three billion dollars. 
lp/dab

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

BUSINESS & TECHNOLOGY
NATURAL GAS BIG IN STATE'S FUTURE > NEW PIPELINES ARE PROPOSED TO FILL NEEDS
Antonio Fins Business Writer

10/14/2001
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Broward Metro
1H
(Copyright 2001 by the Sun-Sentinel)

Prodded by rules requiring cleaner air and bolstered by a series of competing pipeline proposals, natural gas is set to become a major player in Florida's energy grid. 
The state Public Service Commission projects that by the end of the decade, natural gas will account for 44 percent of the fuel used by Florida utilities, up from about 18 percent now. Utility companies use 85 percent of the natural gas burned in Florida.
As energy companies bid for the right to drill for oil and gas 100 miles off Florida's coast, other businesses are betting big dollars on natural gas. 
Gulfstream Natural Gas System is already building a pipeline from Mississippi and Alabama across the Gulf of Mexico and into the Tampa area. Enron Corp. of Houston is proposing to spend as much as $400 million to build a pipeline from the Bahamas Port Everglades. 
Enron's proposal is drawing rivals. El Paso Corp., also in Houston, wants to build a Bahamas to South Florida pipeline that comes ashore in West Palm Beach. And AES Corp. has purchased Ocean Cay, a speck of an island near Bimini in the Bahamas for an energy complex that will include a power plant and a gas pipeline to Port Everglades. 
The proposals are receiving scrutiny from county officials and environmental groups. Ultimately, federal regulators must give their approval before a pipeline can be constructed. 
Still, electric companies, which are proposing to build more than 80 new power plants in Florida through 2010, are looking to make heavy use of natural gas. 
"Practically all the new units are going to burn natural gas," said Michael Haff, an engineer at the PSC. "That's the reason for the large increase" in projections of natural gas usage. 
All this is quite a change for Florida's electric utilities. For decades, power suppliers have found it easier to cart coal and ship oil to burn in Florida's power plants than to pipe in natural gas. 
Nor has there been much of a popular mandate for natural gas in Florida. Most users are small factories, public laundries and restaurants, where chefs prefer natural gas over electricity because it's easier to control the heat. With little need for heating homes in winter, residential use has generally been limited to barbecues, water heaters and stoves. 
Consequently, Florida uses far less natural gas than many states. Household use of natural gas is less than one-fifth of what some households in other parts of the country use. 
The motive for the switch comes from a combination of factors. The federal Clean Air act, signed into law in 1990, is forcing utilities across the country to reduce their dependence on coal and oil and to find cleaner sources of fuel to power their generators. 
Natural gas is one of those options. 
Alvaro Linero, the administrator who reviews power plants for the state Department of Environmental Protection, said natural gas emits no particulate matter, the tiny particles that can lodge in lungs and aggravate respiratory conditions. Unlike oil or coal, it gives off no sulfur dioxide, which causes acid rain. It is also easier to control nitrogen oxide emissions, a key component of smog, when natural gas is the fuel rather than oil or coal. 
Florida Power & Light Co., the largest of the electric companies, has already heavily invested in natural gas generators -- 21 of its 29 non-nuclear power plants are able to run on natural gas. 
FPL said it turns to natural gas occasionally to save customers money, but the utility, regulators and industry groups could not say how much money is saved by the switch. 
Another factor behind the projected rise in usage of natural gas is its growing availability. By 2005, natural gas supplies are expected to surge after one pipeline, which will run gas across the Gulf of Mexico, is finished. Local government and industry officials also expect the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission will give the green light to one of the Bahamas-to-Florida pipeline projects as well. 
Still, some environmental groups say that, while they want cleaner energy, they worry that the push to natural gas raises other fears. 
One concern voiced by civic activists is that the gas pipeline project will create safety hazards at local ports and parks. Enron, which applied to build a Bahamas-to-Florida pipeline, said it has taken steps to make sure it is safe. But Broward officials and a conservationist group, Hollywood-based Save Our Shores, have expressed reservations in filings before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which must approve the pipeline project before construction begins. 
The safety of natural gas pipelines has received more attention recently. After a pipeline exploded in Carlsbad, N.M., last year, killing 12 people, the federal government moved to tighten regulations and require annual testing. 
And the massive increase in natural gas use by the electric companies dismays some natural gas advocates. 
They insist the best way to employ it is by piping it directly into homes for water heaters, stoves and even gas-run air conditioning units -- a more efficient and cost-effective use of natural gas than running electric generators, they argue. 
But state regulators and industry officials say that it is too costly to hook up homes in established neighborhoods because of the expenses in construction and re-landscaping, so expecting large numbers of people to convert from electric to gas appliances is unrealistic. 
Disagreements aside, the consensus is that the state's power utilities and consumers will soon have another fuel and energy option. 
"We don't expect [natural gas usage] to decline. If anything, we may see an increase," said Lance Horton, marketing director for People's Gas Co. "At the end of the day, the customer is going to have another choice that was not there before." 
Staff Writer David Fleshler contributed to this report. 
Antonio Fins can be reached at afins@sun-sentinel.com 954-356- 4669.

PHOTO MAPS 2; Caption: Staff file photo/Carl Seibert Pipeline view: Enron proposes a natural gas pipeline from the Bahamas that would have a terminal in the foreground, just south of I-595, after passing under Port Everglades in the background. It is one of several proposals, so far, to bring more clean energy to Florida. PIPELINE DREAMS: Two of the proposed pipeline projects that would bring energy under the Atlantic Ocean and into South Florida: Staff graphic/ Renee Kwok Enron's proposed pipeline would run from Freeport through Port Everglades. Staff graphic Ocean Cay AES Corp. has proposed constructing pipeline and power plant 
Copyright ? 2000 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 	

FINANCE
Debt load smothers Polaroid; Bankruptcy filing pointing to sale, firings
GREG GATLIN

10/13/2001
Boston Herald
All Editions
020
(Copyright 2001)

Polaroid Corp., one of Massachusetts' most-storied innovators, sought bankruptcy protection yesterday in a Delaware court to reorganize its business and will seek to hasten a sale of the company. 
The highly anticipated move capped a rocky period under Chief Executive Gary DiCamillo and marked an extraordinary fall for the 64- year-old Cambridge instant-photography legend.
The company that helped define Route 128 as America's Technology Highway, slashed thousands of jobs since its peak in 1978, when it employed nearly 21,000. 
It has local operations in Bedford, Cambridge, New Bedford, Norton, Norwood, Waltham and Wayland. 
Polaroid already announced plans this year to cut 3,000 jobs and reduce its work force to 5,500. Yesterday, the company said it will cut more. 
It's been crushed by huge debt and battered by a sharp drop in demand for its mainstay instant film amid a shift to digital technologies and a weak economy. 
"How such a place, with so much success and so much technology, could lose that much money and get into so much debt, I don't understand," said Lloyd Taylor, a retired Polaroid chemist who has also consulted for the company. "A lot of people I've known, both retirees and some that are still there, are just totally demoralized." 
Polaroid, founded by visionary Edwin H. Land in 1937, said it will remain open for business and continue to make and ship its core instant-film products, even as it "accelerates and intensifies" its search for a buyer under bankruptcy court protection. 
But it will slash operations, with an unspecified number of job cuts expected. Anything that's not part of its core business - products that rely on instant film - is subject to sale or elimination. 
That includes the company's sunglass division, its photo- identification business, and others. Polaroid, already selling off real estate and other assets, will seek to sell more and will shutter plants. 
Spokesman Skip Colcord would not provide specifics regarding closings or job cut plans. "I think everything's on the table," he said. 
Polaroid confirmed it terminated its retiree health and life insurance plans as well as severance payments to former U.S. employees. 
A federal bankruptcy judge authorized $13.1 million until Monday for employee wages and checks outstanding, said Polaroid lawyer Gregg Galardi. It will seek approval to continue employee health care benefit payments as well, and to honor service warranties on products. 
In its filing, Polaroid listed $1.81 billion in assets and $948.4 million in debt. Top creditors include Enron Energy Services, Tad Resources International and Dupont Teijin Films US, all with multi- million dollar claims. 
As expected, Polaroid said it had obtained a commitment for $50 million in so-called debtor-in-possession financing from a bank group led by J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. Polaroid will seek court approval to use $40 million of that loan Monday to meet obligations, including paying suppliers on or after yesterday's filing. Lawyers also said Polaroid had a $33 million offer for its identification business. 
Crushed by the weight of its debt, including about $600 million owed to bondholders and $335 in bank loans, Polaroid had teetered on the edge of bankruptcy for months, and received a series of waivers on terms of its lending agreements, while it sought a buyer for some or all of its assets. 
Its once-mighty instant-film business was turned into a cash generator to fund development of new digital-imaging technologies. Earlier this year, Polaroid unveiled new digital printing technology, code-named Opal and Onyx, designed to let consumers and businesses instantly develop prints taken with digital cameras. 
Some say Polaroid lost a step with the departure of Land, its founder and visionary, who stepped down as chief executive in 1980 and as chairman in 1982. Land died in 1991. 
A Harvard University dropout and son of a scrap-metal dealer, Land began to research light polarization in the 1920s, focusing on sunglasses, desk lamps and reducing car headlight glare, before turning to instant film. 
As legend has it, Land took a picture of his young daughter on a vacation in Santa Fe, N.M., and she asked why she couldn't see the picture right away. Land set to work on the problem immediately, and before long was applying for patents. 
By 1988, Polaroid was trying to fight off a hostile takeover bid. Financier Stanley Gold's Shamrock Holdings had offered $3 billion for Polaroid, or about $45 a share. Company management eventually rebuffed Shamrock, but spent millions in legal fees and racked up a massive debt to block the takeover bid, from which it has yet to recover. 
Graphic: Historic developments (photo/text graphic) 
** 1937 -- Edwin H. Land forms Polaroid Corp. Develop products from polarizer technology he patented in 1929, including day glasses and desk lamps. 
** 1947 -- Land demonstrates instant film. 
** 1948 -- Polaroid introduces Land Camera and instant roll film. Net sales: $2,481,372. Net loss ($865,255). 
** 1950 -- Company makes one million rolls of instant film. 
** 1963 -- Instant color film introduced. 
** 1976 -- Polaroid files suit against Eastman Kodak for patent infringement. 
** 1977 -- The OneStep becomes the best-selling camera in the United States - instant or conventional - for more than four years. 
** 1980 -- Land steps down as CEO, continues as chairman and assumes new position of consulting director of basic research in Land photography. 
** 1984 -- Net sales: $1.3 billion. Net earnings: $26 million. Employees: 13,402. 
** 1986 -- Federal appeals court upholds a 1985 decision by district court, ruling that Eastman Kodak violated Polaroid patent rights in its manufacture of instant cameras and film. 
** 1988 -- Shamrock Holdings, Inc. begins attempted hostile takeover. 
**1989 -- Shamrock Holdings, Inc. agrees to terminate its takeover attempt. Net sales: $1.9 million. Net earnings: $145 million. Employees: 11,441. 
** 1991 -- Mac Booth named chairman. Edwin H. Land, Polaroid founder, dies at 81. Suit with Eastman Kodak settled; Kodak pays Polaroid $925 million. 
** 1995 -- Gary T. DiCamillo, the first "outsider" to head the company, succeeds retiring chairman and CEO Mac Booth. 
** 1998 -- Polaroid introduces more than 25 new products in an attempt to find new markets including 35mm cameras and PopShots single-use film and camera system. Net sales: $1.8 billion. Net loss: $51 million. Employees: 9,274 
** 2000 -- DiCamillo unveils strategy to recreate Polaroid as a digital imaging company. 
** 2001 -- Polaroid lays out plans to cut 3,000 jobs, about half in Massachusetts. It defaults on more than $26 million in interest payments to bondholders. Stock plunges to pennies per share. 
Caption: BACK TO BASICS: Despite its bankruptcy filing, Polaroid, based in Cambridge, said it will continue to make and ship its core instant-film products. AP FILE PHOTO

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

WORLD NEWS - Enron wins court injunction - NEWS DIGEST.
By KHOZEM MERCHANT.

10/13/2001
Financial Times (U.K. edition)
(c) 2001 Financial Times Limited . All Rights Reserved

Enron wins court injunction 
Enron, which is poised to pull out of the largest foreign direct investment in India, has won an injunction from a court in London preventing the regional government of Maharashtra from challenging arbitration proceedings launched by the US power company.
Enron's opponents say the court decision, which is confined to appeals in India, significantly reduces legal defences for Maharashtra, where the 2,184MW power plant is located, and is likely to raise the stakes in the Houston-based company's increasingly messy attempt to withdraw from India with full compensation. 
Officials at Enron's Indian arm, Dabhol Power, say the legal move was designed to prevent Maharashtra from trying to stall arbitration through endless legal obstacles. This is what has happened between Enron and its sole Indian client, Maharashtra State Electricity Board. Khozem Merchant, Bombay. 
(c) Copyright Financial Times Ltd. All rights reserved. 
http://www.ft.com.

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