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Enron Mail |
UK: Electric fault blamed for UK Teesside blast - HSE.
Reuters English News Service, 08/10/01 UK: UK power prices ease, focus still on Teesside. Reuters English News Service, 08/10/01 UK Power Market: Spot Up On Outages Dow Jones Energy Service, 08/10/01 INDIA: INTERVIEW-Time running out to solve Indian row, Enron warns. Reuters English News Service, 08/10/01 UK: Electric fault blamed for UK Teesside blast - HSE. 08/10/2001 Reuters English News Service (C) Reuters Limited 2001. LONDON, Aug 10 (Reuters) - A electrical fault in a transformer probably caused an explosion and fire on Wednesday at the Teesside power station in northern England which killed three people, said British safety authorities on Friday. "The evidence points to an electrical short (circuit) leading to an explosion and fire in the transformer," a spokesman for the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) told Reuters. The explosion on Wednesday afternoon killed three employees of the station owner, U.S. utility Enron , and a fourth remains in hospital with burns. The HSE is investigating the incident with the police who are looking to see if there is evidence to support manslaughter proceedings against Enron, said the spokesman. The spokesman said there was maintenance work going on at the plant when the blast occurred but it was unclear if it involved the transformer. The 1,875 megawatt gas-fired power station was closed immediately after the explosion and Enron said on Thursday no decision on future operations would be taken for several days. "On-site activity may increase over the next few days as teams begin the process of assessing the damage," said Enron in a statement. Enron added the HSE may take weeks to complete their investigations. The HSE said Enron had been prosecuted twice for incidents at the plant which was built in 1992 and is part of an industrial complex in the Grangetown district of Middlesbrough. The company was fined 10,000 pounds in 1998 after an explosion in 1996 in which a worker suffered severe burns. It was fined 17,000 pounds for an accident in 1992 when a construction worker was hit by a vehicle. Copyright ? 2000 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. UK: UK power prices ease, focus still on Teesside. 08/10/2001 Reuters English News Service (C) Reuters Limited 2001. LONDON, Aug 10 (Reuters) - British electricity prices ended slightly weaker on Friday in quiet trade which concentrated on the winter 01 and summer 02 baseload contracts. "Winter baseload opened slightly weaker and fell to a low of 20.84 pounds per megawatt hour, although in very lacklustre trade," said one trader. He added the contract firmer later to around 20.88 pounds, although this was a drop of about 10 pence from Thursday's closing levels. Summer 02 baseload also weakened slightly, ending the day down about 10 pence at 17.77/17.85 pounds. In the prompt market, day ahead baseload slipped to 16.50 pounds to reflect the usual drop in demand at the weekend. Traders said the market was waiting for news of the restart of Enron's Teesside power station which closed on Wednsday after an explosion in which three workers died. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) told Reuters the blast was probably caused by an electrical short circuit in the power station's transformer. The HSE investigation into the explosion is expected to take weeks to complete, meanwhile Enron said no decision on future operations at the plant will take place for several days. Copyright ? 2000 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. UK Power Market: Spot Up On Outages 08/10/2001 Dow Jones Energy Service (Copyright © 2001, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.) LONDON -(Dow Jones)- U.K. spot prices were up Friday on outages, including the outage at Enron's 1,875-megawatt plant at Teesside, traders said. Day-ahead, Saturday, base load traded at GBP17.25-GBP17.60 a megawatt-hour, up from Thursday's late trading at GBP17.45/MWh. Saturday blocks 1 and 2 traded at GBP11.60/MWh, and Sunday blocks 1 and 2 traded at GBP10.60/MWh. Blocks 1 and 2 for the weekend traded at GBP12 - GBP12.25/MWh. The weekend traded at GBP16.50 - 17.17/MWh up substantially from Thursday's prices for this contract at GBP16.20/MWh. Weekend peaks traded at GBP20.50/MWh, up on the back of higher base-load prices for the weekend, a trader said. "We really didn't expect to see the weekend trade so high because the grid data looks like there is a good margin," said a trader. "Probably some of the high prices were from Enron, but I don't think that it was all Enron, because I think that some other plants are on outage," he added. Week 33 base load was at a bid-offer spread of GBP17 - GBP17.50/MWh, late in the day, in line with Thursday's trading price of GBP17.25/MWh. Week 33 peaks traded at GBP22.50 - GBP22.75/MWh, up GBP0.15 - GBP0.90 from prices for this contract Thursday. "Enron was buying heaps of week 33 and is now backing off," said a trader. Traders didn't report trades of weeks 34 and 35. September base load traded at GBP18.11-18.15/MWh, and was quoted late in the day at a bid-offer spread of GBP18.16 - GBP18.17/MWh. From July 30 to Aug. 8, when Teesside went offline, prices for Septemeber base load have traded at GBP18.10 - GBP18.29. Prices since the incident have been at GBP18.05 - 18.19/MWh, indicating minimal reaction. From Aug. 1 to Aug. 8, when Teesside went offline, Week 33 was traded at GBP16.30-GBP16.90/MWh. Since Aug. 8, prices for Week 33 have consistently been over GBP17/MWh, indicating a significant reaction. The Meteorological Office expects Saturday's temperatures to be within 1-2 degrees Celsius of Friday's. Early next week the forecast predicts temperatures will decline to below historical norms, by as much as 4 degrees Celsius in some regions. The Balancing Mechanism Reporting System said demand will peak Saturday at 31,920 MW, with a trough of 22,301 MW. Demand peaked Friday at 36,163 MW. The following forward contracts traded Wednesday. Figures are in GBP/MWh: Aug 10 Aug 9 Sept. Base 18.11 - 18.15 18.05 - 18.19 Winter 01 Base 20.84 - 20.95 20.94 - 21.08 Winter 01 Peaks 27.85 - 27.90 27.80 - 27.85 Summer 02 Base 17.79 - 17.82 17.84 - 17.85 Winter 02 Base 20.80 - 20.85 20.95 - 21.00 -By Sarah Spikes, Dow Jones Newswires; +44-20-7842-9345; sarah.spikes@dowjones.com Copyright ? 2000 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. INDIA: INTERVIEW-Time running out to solve Indian row, Enron warns. By Sriram Ramakrishnan 08/10/2001 Reuters English News Service (C) Reuters Limited 2001. BOMBAY, Aug 10 (Reuters) - U.S. energy giant Enron Corp warned on Friday that time was running out for reaching an amicable solution to a long-running, bitter dispute between its Indian unit and a local power utility. The Houston-based company said it could terminate its contract with the Indian utility after the federal government rejected its latest proposal to buy out Enron's stake in its subsidiary at cost price. "The clock is continuing to tick down on the deadline," K. Wade Cline, chief operating officer of Enron India Pvt Ltd, told Reuters in an interview. "Terminating the contract is not inevitable, but it is a possibility if no solution is found." Cline said Enron has not heard from the government directly, but India's junior power minister rejected the proposal in parliament on Thursday. The Maharashtra State Electricity Board, a state-run provincial power utility and Enron's Dabhol Power Corporation are locked in an acrimonious row over the terms under which they agreed to buy and sell power. The cash-strapped Indian utility now claims it does not need all the power that Dabhol wants to supply. It says the power is too expensive anyway, while Enron's subsidiary says the Board is reneging on its contractual obligations. In May, Dabhol stopped supplying power to the Board from its 2,184 MW gas-based power plant on the west coast of India after the utility defaulted on payments. Dabhol then served the utility a preliminary termination notice, but this still gives the two feuding sides until November to solve the issue through negotiation. After this, DPC is free to terminate the contract. WASTED INVESTMENT If Enron terminates the contract, then the $2.9 billion power project is in danger of going down the drain. This now seems closer to reality after the Indian government rejected Enron's suggestion that it buy Enron's 65 percent stake in Dabhol at cost price. The U.S.-based diversified company General Electric Co and construction group Bechtel each hold 10 percent in Dabhol Power Company, while the provincial utility owns the remaining 15 percent. The total equity investment is worth $900 million-1.0 billion. "We have given an option to the governemnt to solve the issue in a non-contentious way and without the need for a final termination notice," Cline said. Enron said it is looking to recover only the cost from its Indian venture and is willing to forego any profits. "No profits, no return on our investment, just our cost and not a penny more," Cline said, but declined to divulge the exact value Enron expects for the proposed stake sale. "We have mentioned the figure in the letter to the government but we are not talking about it," he said. He said the dispute needs to be resolved quickly. "It is having a big negative impact on perceptions of India among investors," he said. ROOT PROBLEM At the heart of the controversy between Dabhol and the Indian power utility is the power tariff, which varies depending on how much power the utility draws down. Cline said Enron is trying hard to solve the issue, with proposals like agreeing to reduce its tariff to 3.50 rupees per unit. At some levels of usage, the tariff can be as high as 7.0 rupees per unit. He said there is a huge misconception about Dabhol's tariffs, which are on par with most new generation power plants including those of the state-owned National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC). "NTPC's new generation plants are producing at more or less similar rates. They are not being asked to reduce their tariffs. why are we being asked to do so?" Enron's offered to lower its tariffs and sell the surplus power that the state utility felt it didn't need to buyers in other states. But the buyers, all state-owned utilities, said the tariff was still not low enough and could pay nothing more than than 2.50 rupees per unit. When asked if Enron would consider a further reduction, Kline said: "If there is a proposal, we will evaluate it. But my question is who will take the hit. We cannot decide on this issue alone. We will have to sit with lenders, shipowners, construction contractors to decide." "We took a hit on our returns, the lenders took a hit on theirs, the ship owners and the suppliers of liquefied natural gas (LNG) also took a hit through this proposal. We had no incentive to do this. We have done nothing wrong." ($1=47.11 Indian rupees). Copyright ? 2000 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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