Calif Sen Pwr Probe Committee OKs Deposing Energy Execs
Dow Jones Energy Service, 07/20/01

ITALY: Montedison chances of fighting off Fiat seen fading.
 Reuters English News Service, 07/20/01

NORWAY PRESS:Best Municipalities Wait To Sell Pwr Plants
Dow Jones International News, 07/20/01 

AES Corp. Wants India to Buy Its Stake in Power Distributor
Bloomberg, 07/20/01

Enron's India Unit Wants Renewed Arbitration, N.Y. Times Says
Bloomberg, 07/20/01


AES Corp. Wants India to Buy Its Stake in Power Distributor
Bloomberg, 07/20/01

Calif Sen Pwr Probe Committee OKs Deposing Energy Execs

07/20/2001
Dow Jones Energy Service 
(Copyright (c) 2001, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.) 

(This article was originally published Thursday) 
By Jason Leopold
OF DOW JONES NEWSWIRES 
LOS ANGELES (Dow Jones)--A California Senate committee investigating manipulation in the state's wholesale power market approved a measure late Thursday, authorizing the committee to depose the chief executives of major energy companies to provide insight into the companies' trading practices. 
The Senate Select Committee to Investigate Market Manipulation voted 28-6 in favor of deposing some of the energy sector's most powerful chief executives. 
The move comes a day after the committee held Reliant Energy Inc. (REI) and Enron Corp. (ENE) in contempt for refusing to provide documents on its electricity trading and sales practices. The full Senate is expected to vote on the contempt charge and decide the punishment to impose. 
Sen. Joe Dunn, D-Santa Ana, the committee chair, would have carte blanche to depose executives, such as Enron Chairman Ken Lay, who has been singled out by Attorney General Bill Lockyer for gouging consumers in the state. 
Representatives of the energy companies under investigation were not available for comment. 
The committee has been investigating whether energy companies knowingly manipulated the state's wholesale electricity market to drive up prices and create artificial shortages. 
It has yet to uncover a "smoking gun." But has secured the testimony of former Duke Energy (DUK) power plant employees who told the committee that the company reduced output at a San Diego power plant during power emergencies to drive up power prices. 
The state's Independent System Operator, however, conceded that it ordered the fluctuations in capacity at the power plant. 
-By Jason Leopold; Dow Jones Newswires; 323-658-3874; jason.leopold@dowjones.com

ITALY: Montedison chances of fighting off Fiat seen fading.
By Christian Plumb

07/20/2001
Reuters English News Service 
(C) Reuters Limited 2001. 

MILAN, July 20 (Reuters) - Montedison continued to battle a Fiat-led consortium's 5.6 billion euro hostile takeover on Friday, but investors said its chances were fading. 
Montedison clung to the hope that an Italian administrative court would rule in its favour against securities regulator Consob, which earlier this week gave the go-ahead for the bid.
That court will issue a provisional ruling in the case on July 25, the day before the Italenergia consortium's offer is due to begin, a judicial source told Reuters. 
Montedison and its longtime backer Mediobanca are also hoping that EU regulators will find that Italenergia should have notified it about the bid and punish the would-be predator by temporarily suspending its voting rights in Montedison. 
Above all, Montedison is looking for an opening that would let it launch a counterbid for Edison, Italy's second-largest power company and Italenergia's main target. 
Italian press reports today said U.S. power company Enron could be interested in such a counterbid. That was the latest in a series of potential white knights for Edison that have so far not materialised. 
"The hope is to open a window that would allow them to launch a counter-offer for Edison," said Massimo Aloi, a fund manager at Antonveneta ABN Amro in Milan. "But the possibilities are low." 
A suspension of the Consob ruling would also mean a suspension of the so-called "passivity rule" which bars takeover targets from taking evasive manoeuvres. 
"At this point, we think the Fiat offer should get a lot of shares tendered," Aloi added. 
Other investors agreed the chances were remote for Mediobanca to hold onto its key industrial asset. 
Gathering support for a counterbid "seems like an unlikely hypothesis because they would not be able to reach a majority of the capital at a shareholder meeting," said Luca Comi, head of research at Eptasim in Milan. 
Italenergia holds about 52 percent of Montedison ordinary shares. 
The Fiat bidding vehicle late on Thursday moved to blunt criticism about the role of Electricite de France, cutting the French power giant's preference shares to a two percent weight. Italenergia had previously converted all but two percent of EdF's ordinary shares into preference shares. 
Italenergia is doing its best to minimise the role of the French utility, which has been accused of expanding into other energy markets while its home market remains mostly closed to competition. 
In another potential setback to Mediobanca, the merchant bank could even be forced to backtrack on one of the anti-takeover moves it took as Italenergia was launching its offer - the sale of 35 percent of paper holding company Dieci to French raider Vincent Bollore. 
Shareholders in Dieci plan to exercise their right of first refusal on that 35 percent, dealing a blow to a key prong of Mediobanca's defence, Il Sole 24 Ore reported on Friday.

NORWAY PRESS:Best Municipalities Wait To Sell Pwr Plants

07/20/2001
Dow Jones International News 
(Copyright (c) 2001, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.) 

OSLO (Dow Jones)-Enron (ENE) Nordic Energy director Thor Lien says municipalities are losing money by selling their power plants now, daily Aftenposten reports. 
Lien says the companies should wait until the law that permits the state to takeover for free power plants bought from municipalities by private companies is changed.
Newspaper Web site: http://www.aftenposten.no 
-Oslo Bureau, Dow Jones Newswires; 47 23 35 70 70

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

AES Corp. Wants India to Buy Its Stake in Power Distributor
2001-07-20 08:34 (New York)
AES Corp. Wants India to Buy Its Stake in Power Distributor
     New Delhi, July 20 (Bloomberg) -- AES Corp., a U.S. power
generator, said India must pay it out for its stake in a power
distributor in eastern Orissa state that's owed $45 million in
past-due bills because of power thefts and refusals to pay.
     The debts owed by consumers in the state to Central
Electricity Supply Co., 51 percent owned by AES, have accumulated
over the last two-and-a-half years. Some consumers refuse to pay
for electricity in India, while many steal it after connecting
illegally to transmission lines.
     ``It's a crisis. We don't have any solutions for the
problem,'' Haresh Jaisinghani, managing director at AES Transpower
Pte., a AES unit based in Singapore, said in an interview. ``We're
tired of waiting.''
     AES is at least the fifth overseas utility to face payment
problems or withdraw investments from India citing delays,
bureaucracy and the slow pace of reforms. Their withdrawal may
hurt India's economy, which needs $200 billion to double
generating capacity and avoid power failures common in many Indian
cities.
     Enron Corp. and a state electricity board in India's western
state of Maharashtra have been quarrelling for seven months over
$64 million of unpaid bills. The board, Enron's sole customer,
stopped buying power from the unit, saying it's too expensive.
Construction of the $3 billion plant's second phase stopped last
month after lenders cut funding.
     Four other foreign power companies, including Electricite de
France, Europe's largest, have pulled out of Indian power projects
worth $3 billion.
     AES says it doesn't have any money to pay the salaries of
8,500 Central Electric Supply, or Cesco, employees after July
ends.
                              Orissa
     Orissa in 1996 became the first of India's 28 provinces to
split its electricity board, almost bankrupt from power thefts,
into separate distribution and generation companies to boost
efficiency.
     Four companies -- one each for the northern, southern,
western and central parts of the state -- were created to
distribute power. AES bought 51 percent of Cesco for $140 million
and BSES Ltd., a power producer in Mumbai, took 51 percent in each
of the other three distributors. The state's transmission unit,
Gridco, holds the other 49 percent in each of the four companies.
     Yet, things haven't worked to plan. Orissa's government
loaded 4.66 billion rupees in past-due bills from its electricity
board on to Gridco, curbing its ability to pay future bills to
power producers like AES. Power thefts made the problem worse:
about half the power transmitted by Gridco to the distributors in
1998 was stolen or lost, according to a government report.
     ``We've not had any law and order support from Orissa,''
AES's Jaisinghani said. ``Our officials were intimidated by locals
each time they tried to recover past dues.''
     Still, AES is not closing down its 49 percent owned Orissa
Power Generation Co., which runs a 420-megawatt power plant. It's
operating at 80 percent capacity.
     ``OPGC (the power station) is getting paid but not enough,''
Jaisinghani said. ``Running the plant at 80 percent capacity will
cover costs in the current year. Of course, that doesn't solve our
problem'' of unpaid bills.
     Arlington, Virginia-based AES owns stakes in 173 power plants
generating 59,000 megawatts worldwide, including utilities in the
U.S. and Latin America.
     AES shares rose 25 cents to $36.68. They have declined 34
percent this year.
--Ravil Shirodkar and Anindya Mukherjee in the New Delhi newsroom
(91 11) 334 8812, or at rshirodkar@bloomberg.net /rb
Story illustration: To graph the performance of AES Corp. shares,
click {AES US <Equity> GP <GO>}. For more stories about power in
India {TNI INDIA UTI <GO>}.

Enron's India Unit Wants Renewed Arbitration, N.Y. Times Says
2001-07-20 06:15 (New York)
     Bangalore, India, July 20 (Bloomberg) -- Enron Corp.'s Dabhol
Power unit in India asked the Supreme Court of India to restart
arbitration proceedings in its dispute with a regional utility
project that was the only customer of its $2.9 billion power
project, the New York Times reported.
     Dabhol asked the court to vacate an earlier ruling by the
Mumbai High Court in Maharashtra that stopped the arbitration
process, the paper said. The lower court sent the case to the
regulatory authority in Maharashtra. No decision has been made.
     Dabhol claims the Maharashtra State Utility Board owes it
$64 million, the paper said. The project is the biggest single
foreign investment in the company. Houston-based Enron holds a
65 percent stake in Dabhol.
     In May, Dabhol began a six-month notice period to end the
power-purchase agreement. The plant stopped production when the
utility, which had claimed Dabhol was overcharging it, stopped
buying power in response, the paper said.
(NYT 7-20)
For the Web site of the New York Times, see {NYTI <GO>}.
--Rachel Katz in the Princeton newsroom at (609) 279-4116, or at
rkatz3@bloomberg.net/als
Story illustration: For a history of Enron's sales and earnings,
see {ENE US <Equity> DES5 <GO>}

AES Corp. Wants India to Buy Its Stake in Power Distributor
2001-07-20 08:34 (New York)
AES Corp. Wants India to Buy Its Stake in Power Distributor
     New Delhi, July 20 (Bloomberg) -- AES Corp., a U.S. power
generator, said India must pay it out for its stake in a power
distributor in eastern Orissa state that's owed $45 million in
past-due bills because of power thefts and refusals to pay.
     The debts owed by consumers in the state to Central
Electricity Supply Co., 51 percent owned by AES, have accumulated
over the last two-and-a-half years. Some consumers refuse to pay
for electricity in India, while many steal it after connecting
illegally to transmission lines.
     ``It's a crisis. We don't have any solutions for the
problem,'' Haresh Jaisinghani, managing director at AES Transpower
Pte., a AES unit based in Singapore, said in an interview. ``We're
tired of waiting.''
     AES is at least the fifth overseas utility to face payment
problems or withdraw investments from India citing delays,
bureaucracy and the slow pace of reforms. Their withdrawal may
hurt India's economy, which needs $200 billion to double
generating capacity and avoid power failures common in many Indian
cities.
     Enron Corp. and a state electricity board in India's western
state of Maharashtra have been quarrelling for seven months over
$64 million of unpaid bills. The board, Enron's sole customer,
stopped buying power from the unit, saying it's too expensive.
Construction of the $3 billion plant's second phase stopped last
month after lenders cut funding.
     Four other foreign power companies, including Electricite de
France, Europe's largest, have pulled out of Indian power projects
worth $3 billion.
     AES says it doesn't have any money to pay the salaries of
8,500 Central Electric Supply, or Cesco, employees after July
ends.
                              Orissa
     Orissa in 1996 became the first of India's 28 provinces to
split its electricity board, almost bankrupt from power thefts,
into separate distribution and generation companies to boost
efficiency.
     Four companies -- one each for the northern, southern,
western and central parts of the state -- were created to
distribute power. AES bought 51 percent of Cesco for $140 million
and BSES Ltd., a power producer in Mumbai, took 51 percent in each
of the other three distributors. The state's transmission unit,
Gridco, holds the other 49 percent in each of the four companies.
     Yet, things haven't worked to plan. Orissa's government
loaded 4.66 billion rupees in past-due bills from its electricity
board on to Gridco, curbing its ability to pay future bills to
power producers like AES. Power thefts made the problem worse:
about half the power transmitted by Gridco to the distributors in
1998 was stolen or lost, according to a government report.
     ``We've not had any law and order support from Orissa,''
AES's Jaisinghani said. ``Our officials were intimidated by locals
each time they tried to recover past dues.''
     Still, AES is not closing down its 49 percent owned Orissa
Power Generation Co., which runs a 420-megawatt power plant. It's
operating at 80 percent capacity.
     ``OPGC (the power station) is getting paid but not enough,''
Jaisinghani said. ``Running the plant at 80 percent capacity will
cover costs in the current year. Of course, that doesn't solve our
problem'' of unpaid bills.
     Arlington, Virginia-based AES owns stakes in 173 power plants
generating 59,000 megawatts worldwide, including utilities in the
U.S. and Latin America.
     AES shares rose 25 cents to $36.68. They have declined 34
percent this year.
--Ravil Shirodkar and Anindya Mukherjee in the New Delhi newsroom
(91 11) 334 8812, or at rshirodkar@bloomberg.net /rb
Story illustration: To graph the performance of AES Corp. shares,
click {AES US <Equity> GP <GO>}. For more stories about power in
India {TNI INDIA UTI <GO>}.