There have been no "official" developments relating to Enron North America or the Portland office that I am aware of since the floor meeting on Wednesday.  The news of the Europe office closing so suddenly has certainly been unsettling.  Absent any tangible news pertaining to the fate of our office I thought that I could, at a minimum, try to explain to people what I've seen going on over the last couple of days.

On the trading side we are doing several things.  First, we are trying to honor as many of our physical delivery obligations as possible.  Several customers have stopped making deliveries to us which is making it impossible for us, in turn, to honor all of our physical deliveries.  In these circumstances we are constantly updating our customers on the status of their schedules so that they can make alternative arraingements.  The Cash Trading, Scheduling, Services, and Real Time groups are doing an unbelievable job with this.  I am impressed at how capable, professional, and calm our team has remained.  On the Term Trading side we are working with our customers to close out positions.  This process is going very smoothly as well.  We traded a record volume yesterday as our customers reduced their exposure to us.  The Term trading team has done an excellent job with this.  Third, on the Middle Market and Origination side we are trying to work with customers to bring cash in the door.  Many customers owe us money due to out of the money future positions.  Many customers would prefer to settle up with us now rather than in bankruptcy if that is what ends up happening to us.  We have brought a significant amount of cash in the door as a result of these efforts and saved our customers from going through a potentially onerous bankruptcy proceeding.  I am very appreciative of the efforts of our Origination and Middle Marketing team that has made this happen.

On the bright side, I remain optimistic that someone will buy or fund the North America gas and power businesses.  While it is impossible to handicap anything these days with Enron I am seeing some very positive signs on this front.  Unlike the Dynegy deal, which required Dynegy to purchase the very profitable core business along along with the rest of Enron's baggage, the deals being considered now would likely involve only the core business.  I don't know whether these deals happen, and if they do, I don't know what form the core business takes as a result.  Chris Calger and I have been part of the team talking to our potential suitors.  We will both be in Houston through the weekend and into early next week working on this.  We will update people as soon as possible as things unfold.

I know that this situation really sucks.  Given the anxiety and uncertainty that we are all feeling people are doing a great job keeping focused and staying positive.  I think that things are going to unfold very quickly from here -- most likely in the next week or two.  Please hang in there.

Tim
(on behalf of Tim and Chris)