Selected Energy Stock Performance: First Quarter 1996
Annual Annual EPS
Close Close Percent 52-Wk 52-Wk Div Div Book P/E Last
Company Region 12/29/95 03/29/96 Change High Low Rate Yield Value Ratio 12 Mos.
Electric Utilities
AEP Company Inc.
Fortnightly Magazine - May 15 1996
Perspective
Since the federal Court of Appeals decision in the Calvert Cliffs case over 25 years ago, no power plant may be built without a thorough socioeconomic impact statement. Yet, schemes to alter the entire supply system of a state - or even the nation - are currently proposed with only cursory attention to socioeconomic consequences.
Byline:
Frank Clements
Stranded Costs: Is the Market Paying Attention? (A Look at Market-to-Book Ratios)
Investors are taking stock
of utility exposure to price competition.The utility trade press and even the general financial press have featured the views of regulators, utility executives, legislators, and various consumer advocates on the stranded-cost question. Stranded costs easily represent the most contentious issue facing the electric industry as it moves to an era of competition.
Byline:
Agustin Ros, John L. Domagalski, and Philip R. O'Connor
Senate Panel Continues Inquiry into Electricity'sw Future
If the new rules of electric industry competition don't permit stranded-cost recovery, the credibility of the U.S. government would be seriously undermined. Or so an executive of one of the country's largest utilities told a Senate energy panel."We just have to keep in mind we incurred these costs based under what the rules were," said Jerry Jackson of Entergy Corp. "If the government is going to change those rules . . .
Byline:
Joseph F. Schuler, Jr.
Stranded Investment: Is the Sale Worth Keeping? (A Look at Utility Options)
Giving up today's customer to retail wheeling could help cut losses tomorrow.
Estimates of stranded investment for U.S. investor-owned electric utilities (IOUs) range from as little as $20 billion to as much as $500 billion (em more than double the shareholder equity in U.S. utilities.
Byline:
Stan Hadley, Eric Hirst, and Lester Baxter
FERC: "High-Low" Gas Pricing Prevents Gaming
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has approved Texas Eastern Transmission Corp.'s (TET) proposed revisions of its monthly imbalance cash-out mechanism (Docket No. RP96-142-000).
TET had asserted in February that its monthly imbalance mechanism enabled shippers to game the cash-out mechanism during the recent rapid and large price fluctuations in the spot gas market.
Byline:
Lori A. Burkhart
Evolution or Revolution? Dismantling the FASB Standard on Decommissioning Costs
If approved as proposed, the new accounting standard
for closure or removal of long-lived assets
will bring costs out into the open.
But is it rational?
On February 7, 1996, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) issued for comment an "Exposure Draft" of a new proposed statement of financial accounting standards pertaining to nuclear plant decommissioning and other similar legal obligations,
Byline:
John S. Ferguson
FERC OK's Affiliate Resale
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has conditionally allowed QST Energy Trading, Inc., a subsidiary of Central Illinois Light Co. to make sales to nonaffiliates as well as to an affiliate, QST Energy, Inc. (FERC Docket No. ER96-553-000). In turn, QST Energy would sell power in Illinois to customers located outside the service territory of Central Illinois.
Byline:
Lori A. Burkhart
A Milestone Year: Power in the Commodity Markets
Paper trading is here, introducing an element of speculation in wholesale electric markets.The electric power industry joined the commodity markets on March 29, 1996, when power futures began to trade on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX). This first tentative step in the commoditization of electricity promises the emergence of a paper market for power, which, as in the case of other commodities, will likely prove substantially broader and more complex than electricity's physical market.
Byline:
Edward Krapels and Vito Stagliano
NEES Proposes Transmission Sub
The New England Electric System (NEES) has filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and the Securities and Exchange Commission for authority to separate
generation and transmission, and to create a
transmission subsidiary called NEES Transmission Services, Inc. NEES Transmission has filed proposed transmission tariffs at the FERC that would give its wholesale customers, including New England Power Co.
Byline:
Lori A. Burkhart