This year, or next, legislators will close in on a national energy bill. Some agreement already looks promising for several industry flashpoints.

The pros and cons of dividend pay-out reductions and stock repurchase programs in uncertain economic times.

The Dow Jones Utility Average currently stands at its lowest level in five years. Electric and gas utilities, along with U.S. companies generally, have been consistently lowering their payout ratios over the past several years, and that downward trend is projected to continue. What do these facts portend for utility investors in the near future?

Adopting a portfolio approach to credit risk is the answer.

How times have changed from the "good old days" of credit risk management. No longer can credit managers hide behind the false comfort that they only approve transactions with companies that pay their bills.

The real, painful reform has only just begun.

It has been almost a year since Enron imploded into bankruptcy, but rather than solve problems, the event has only brought uncertainty-credit rating downgrades, a drop in investor confidence, and heightened scrutiny from the Congress, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

S&P, Moody's, and Fitch tell why credit issues now rule the energy sector.

This year saw energy companies forced to make some grim choices-issuing new stock in falling markets, angering investors with dividend cutbacks, selling prized assets at fire sale prices. Some blame it on the rating agencies-the bond kings-who imposed tougher credit standards after the fall of Enron.

Dung Deal

Power plants choose that most renewable of fuels.

Power from pig poop. Sounds like a skit from Saturday Night, but it's not. In July, a bona fide dung-fired power plant came online in that most proper of nations, Great Britain. And according to the firm behind the project, Farmatic UK, the plant could be the first of many in Britain.

Dung-fired power plants are also popular in Germany and Denmark, which each has about 20 large-scale plants operating.

William J. Froehlich has been appointed director of the re-established Office of Administrative Litigation at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). Froehlich has been an attorney with FERC since 1975. As the head of the office, Froehlich will report directly to FERC Chairman Pat Wood III and the commissioners.

It's the Grid, Stupid!

 

 

Bank of America's recent request to FERC to be allowed to trade power was yet one more reminder that a whole new class of companies are quietly positioning themselves to dominate what's left of the energy trading space after the departure of traders like Enron and Aquila.

Grid system operators now hold the cards. That means a bidding war for talent and a new wave of mergers.

TBy issuing new rules for a Standard Market Design (SMD) for wholesale power, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in all likelihood will usher in a new wave of utility mergers. But the pattern will differ from what we have seen in recent years.

The deals will center on the transmission sector, and take a horizontal shape, rather than vertical.