Enron: ISO Credit Problems Are Those Of Calif Utilities 
                     Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES 
                     12/13/2000 
                     Dow Jones Energy Service 
                     (Copyright (c) 2000, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.) 
                      
                     By Mark Golden 

                     NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- The credit problems of the 
California Independent System Operator reflect the
                     credit problems of the state's three investor-owned 
utilities, Enron Corp. (ENE) chief of staff Steven Kean
                     said Wednesday. 
                      
                      
                     "We have expressed some concerns about the utilities' 
creditworthiness," Kean said. "They wouldn't have
                     this credit issue if they had a government guarantee." 

                     Standard & Poor's credit analyst for California 
utilities, Richard Cortright, told Dow Jones Newswires that
                     such a guarantee is highly unlikely. 

                     "There's no point in talking about it," Cortright said. 

                     The credit-rating agency put California utility holding 
companies PG&E Corp (PCG) and Edison
                     International (EIX) on watch with negative implications 
Wednesday. The utilities have seen their debt
                     rating downgraded already this fall, but their debts are 
piling up by the billions as they continue to pay
                     about 10 times more for power supplies than they can 
charge customers. 

                     "The sheer magnitute of the undercollected balance is 
beyond belief," Cortright said. "Wholesale prices
                     have gotten worse, and every hour the situation gets 
more dire." 

                     Cortright said the only step that would save the 
utilities' credit status is if California regulators raised the
                     rates the utilities can charge customers. 

                     Late Wednesday, the California Public Utilties 
Commission indicated that it may do so, reversing a
                     decision made just last week. 

                     "With new generation coming on, you would expect the 
rates to decline in a couple of years," Cortright
                     said. 

                     The California Independent System Operator almost had to 
institute rolling blackouts Wednesday
                     because 13 suppliers had stopped selling it power due to 
concerns about the ISO's credit. 

                     California Gov. Gray Davis said that Enron was one of 
the "dirty 13." 

                     Enron's Kean said that Enron was only offering very 
limited amounts of power to the ISO. 

                     "We are basically just a buyer and seller. We control 
only 70 megawatts of generation in the state, which
                     we offered to the ISO today because of the emergency, 
but the ISO declined to purchase that power,"
                     Kean said. 

                     That small generating unit is located in the southern 
California, while the ISO's supply problems were
                     most acute in northern California. 

                     "We aren't selling any other power to them right now. 
Everything else that we bought we've sold to other
                     buyers," said Kean, who added that Enron had sold to the 
ISO as recently as Tuesday. 

                     The ISO manages California's electricity grid and 
purchases last-minute additional power on behalf of the
                     state's three investor-owned utilities. The ISO then 
bills the utilities, which are PG&E Corp's Pacific Gas &
                     Electric Co, Edison International's (EIX) Southern 
California Edison, and Sempra Energy's (SRE) San
                     Diego Gas & Electric Co. 

                     The ISO has 70-day payment terms to suppliers. 

                     For the past two weeks, and often during the summer, the 
ISO has been purchasing about one-fourth of
                     the state's entire needs at very high prices. It's 
current daily power purchases are running at $50 million to
                     $100 million.

                     -By Mark Golden, Dow Jones Newswires; 201-938-4604; 
mark.golden@dowjones.com 


   
	Enron North America Corp.
	
	From:  Frank Hayden @ ENRON                           12/14/2000 09:08 AM
	

To: Rebecca Phillips/HOU/ECT@ECT
cc:  
Subject: Re: Article  

I can't access the article without Enron's account number..  You wouldn't 
happen to have that?

Frank




To: Frank Hayden/Corp/Enron@Enron
cc:  

Subject: Article

http://nrstg2s.djnr.com/cgi-bin/DJInteractive?cgi=WEB_FLAT_PAGE&GJANum=3008059
88&page=wrapper/index&entry_point=1&user_bounced=1&entry_point=1

Here's an article about ENE and Cal.  Looks like we control about 70 MW in 
Cal.
r