When Joel Singer headed the North American Gas Practice at Arthur D. Little, Inc., he helped large companies rethink business strategies to adapt to deregulating markets. Singer called his business model the "competitive strategy framework": "You do not reengineer your way into growth. You've got to figure out what's the growth strategy, then look at building business processes around that."

Singer's approach is becoming evident at Bay State Gas Co. in Westborough, MA.

Standard & Poor's (S&P) has issued its first quarterly report on public power and rural electric cooperatives: Muni Utility Ratings: 1995, 1996, and Beyond. The report predicts that the shakeout in credit quality that has characterized the municipal utility industry since 1993 will continue in 1996. Downgrades and negative outlook assignments will continue to outpace positive ratings actions, but not at the 1995 rate.

The New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission (PUC) has adopted second revised guidelines for its retail wheeling pilot program. The pilot is independent of full restructuring efforts.

The collaborative group working on the guidelines was unable to make a joint recommendation on stranded costs, but the PUC found no reason to deviate from the 50/50 split, with a true-up where needed. The pilot is limited to 3 percent of each utility's peak load for two years. Participants will be randomly selected from a pool of interested customers.

Kansas City Power & Light Co. (KCPL) and UtiliCorp United have propose to merge in a stock transaction valued at about $3 billion. Like MidAmerican before them, the utilities are calling the deal a "merger of equals" that will result in a company with about $6.4 billion in assets and about 2.2 million customers.

KCPL shareholders will receive one share of stock for each share of KCPL common stock; holders of UtiliCorp common stock will receive 1.096 shares. There are about 62 million shares of KCPL common stock and 46 million shares of UtiliCorp common stock outstanding.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has approved the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) applications for electricity futures contracts on delivery at the Palo Verde Switchyard in Arizona and at the California-Oregon border (COB).

Both contracts use a unit of 736 megawatt-hours (Mwh) delivered over one month. The delivery rate is 2 megawatts in every hour of the delivery period of 16 onpeak hours (0600 to 2200 hours). Both the rate and the period may be amended by mutual agreement of the buyer and seller.

separate price tag capped at SMUD's cost-of-service (em ranging from $0.43 to $2.93 per kilowatt-hour per month.

Michigan Attorney General Frank J. Kelley has filed a request to intervene in an action pending before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The action concerns the NRC's failure to address a request by Consumers Power Co. to unload spent, high-level nuclear fuel from a defective cask at the Palisades nuclear plant.

Kelley is filing in support of a petition by two consumer groups that want the NRC to prevent Consumers from using dry-cask storage because the utility has violated its license to operate that system.

Standard & Poor's (S&P) plans to maintain negative outlooks on the three largest California electric utilities (em Southern California Edison (SCE), San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E), and Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E). Although it considers the California Public Utilities Commission's (CPUC's) December 20 electric restructuring order "reasonably favorable," S&P will not reexamine the ratings until it is sure the plan will be finalized as proposed. S&P's concern is that some members of the California State Senate believe small customer interests would not be adequately protected.

SCEcorp has a new corporate structure and name: Edison International. It also has a new subsidiary, Edison Source, which specializes in solutions for energy efficiency, the environment, and energy marketing. Edison International now has five subsidiaries; its flagship, Southern California Edison, is the nation's second-largest IOU.

The article "Electric Utility Mergers: The Answer or the Question?" (by Robert J. Michaels) in the January 1, 1996, issue, along with current events involving my employer, a midwestern utility currently involved in a merger, initiated some questions and comments regarding top executives chairmen.

We expect continued mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in the continental United States until 50 or fewer utilities serve the nation.