John,
We have asked every single counterparty in the NW to sell us energy.  We bid $300 to PowerX and were told that they were abiding by the cap.
We are working hard to get them the energy that they need and will continue to do so.

Bill

 -----Original Message-----
From: 	Malowney, John  
Sent:	Thursday, June 21, 2001 3:38 PM
To:	Williams III, Bill
Cc:	Portland Shift
Subject:	Montana Power Company (MPC) Energy Imbalance

Bill; Mike Cashell (MPC's Transmission Mgr.) just phoned me concerned, because MPC's Real-Time group requested EPMI purchase energy for them under our existing Energy Imbalance structure, and was notified by our Real-Time group that due to the newly implemented FERC price cap, we were have difficulty securing any resources.  Just to clarify things, we are settling MPC's Choice customers Energy Imbalance position, and PP&L Montana has the right to any length resulting from MPC's "domestic" load Energy Imbalance.  In other words MPC is settling two separate Energy Imbalance accounts, so during the hour they may be turning energy back to PP&L Montana, while at the same time finding themselves short for the Choice loads.  During the recent bullish pricing conditions, Choice customer were leaving themselves long, as of late, MPC is experiencing the Choice customers doing the opposite, positioning themselves short.  The net result is that MPC will most likely be expecting us to fill a short position from this point on, so I'd really like to see what we can do to honor their requests, mindful of the favorable position we've enjoyed over the last several months. Let me know if you'd like to discuss this further, or better yet if you've got a workable solution to the problem.  In the meantime, thanks again to you and your staff for the outstanding performance thus far in dealing with MPC.   John