Utility Week articles from February 2004

Utility Week archives from February 2004

Artesian swell.
February 6, 2004... The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is doing for debt finance what Ikea did for furniture - making it ready to go. Just as the furniture store from Sweden has eradicated the need to order furniture months in advance, at significant expense, and...

WATER; RBS raises debt programme by 50%.(Royal Bank of Scotland)(Brief Article)
February 6, 2004... The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has increased the funds available in its easy-access bond scheme, Artesian Finance, by 50 per cent in anticipation of more water companies coming in. Artesian, which takes the costs and hassle out of...

ELECTRICITY; Six bidders in Bulgarian wires auction.(Brief Article)
February 6, 2004... Six international energy and engineering companies have been allowed to continue in the privatisation of Bulgaria's seven electricity distribution companies. The chosen bidders were Enel of Italy, Germany's Eon, Austria's EVN, Swedish...

ELECTRICITY; CEZ wins over unions with 3.5% offer.(Brief Article)
February 6, 2004... CEZ, the state-owned Czech energy group, last week concluded a collective agreement with trade unions for 2004-06, putting an end to the threat of industrial unrest. Management pushed through a 3.5 per cent growth in wages, while unions...

ENVIRONMENT; Six states in court on air pollution charges.(Brief Article)
February 6, 2004... by Keith Nuthall The European Commission is taking six national governments to the European Court of Justice over allegations that they have failed to implement the large combustion plants directive which seeks to cut air pollution through...

TELECOMS; Irish watchdog forces top mobile players to open up.(ComReg)(Brief Article)
February 6, 2004... Irish telecoms regulator ComReg has ordered mobile phone operators O2 and Vodafone to open their networks to competitors. The move comes after a review of the Republic's mobile telecoms market found that Irish people spent more per head on...

WATER; Dutch PPP wins new cash.(Public-Private Partnership)(Brief Article)
February 6, 2004... The European Investment Bank has drawn up plans to lend up to e125 million to water authority Hoogheemraadschap van Delfland for a new wastewater treatment plant and to upgrade existing plant in the Hague and its surrounding region in the...

ENERGY; EDP spurns Iberdrola offer to swap assets.(Electricidade de Portugal)(Brief Article)
February 6, 2004... by Ivan Castano Electricidade de Portugal (EDP) has thrown cold water on the hopes of Spain's Iberdrola of swapping its 5 per cent holding in the Portuguese energy major for electricity and gas assets in the neighbouring country. EDP...

electricity; Enel to turn e1bn of debt into bonds.(Brief Article)
February 6, 2004... Italian power giant Enel is planning a bond issue of between e500 million and e1 billion for retail investors. The bond will be Enel's first issue to ordinary shareholders for more than a decade and will restructure existing debt. The...

ENERGY; More exemptions for EU energy taxes.( European Union )(Brief Article)
February 6, 2004... Exemptions from the European Union's new energy tax directive have been proposed by the European Commission for eastern and southern European countries joining the EU in May. They would be added to the already long list of exemptions...

Mast mania, pigeons and nags.
February 6, 2004... Last week backbench MPs were queuing up to bad-mouth mobile phone companies about mast siting and to question official assurances that the ubiquitous installations could not be proved to be bad for your health. Once again the company with most...

ELECTRICITY; Finland to boost nuclear and CHP.(Combined Heat and Power )(Brief Article)
February 6, 2004... Finland's energy industry has pledged to increase its nuclear capacity and Combined Heat and Power (CHP) output to meet the country's escalating power demand. Finland's energy consumption is expected to leap by 25 per cent by 2020, to...

GAS; Europe sales surge for Gazprom.(Brief Article)
February 6, 2004... Rising European gas sales and prices boosted profitability last year at Gazprom, the world's biggest gas producer. The energy giant announced that its net profit soared by more than seven times in the first nine months of last year, when it...

ELECTRICITY; International mothballs Texas plant.(Brief Article)
February 6, 2004... Weak wholesale prices in the US have driven International Power to mothball its 1.1GW Hays combined cycle gas turbine power station in Texas. The company's chief executive, Philip Cox, said wholesale prices were so bad in the state that...

ELECTRICITY; Innogy to boost wind plans with [pounds sterling]400m.
February 6, 2004... by Roger Milne Ministers have welcomed a ground-breaking deal involving Innogy's wind power business securing new private investment in clean generation. The deal was announced as the Department of Trade and Industry considered...

The word on the street.
February 6, 2004... Security of supply and the maintenance and renewal of Britain's utility infrastructure remains a key concern as we head into the second month of 2004. This week it is water in the spotlight as Thames Water flags up the urgent need to spend a...

Geography questioned.(Letter to the Editor)
February 6, 2004... Sir: It is encouraging to see Disconnector recognises a good story (Big noise about a big voice, Utility Week, 16 January) and appreciates 'the top press release', which refers to the counties of Wessex still buzzing with memories of The Three...

TELECOMS; MPs lash out over mast siting.
February 6, 2004... by Roger Milne Mobile telecoms operators have been pilloried by MPs for paying lip service to community fears over possible threats to health from their network masts. The criticisms were aired in a House of Commons debate last week...

One ; way.
February 6, 2004... The utilities industry can head off the government's ill-conceived streetworks legislation if it comes up with its own solution - fast . By Alan McMaster. Utility companies will be the big losers from the clampdown on roadworks announced...

Costing water efficiency.
February 6, 2004... Water and sewerage companies in England and Wales are getting more efficient but the pace of improvement is slackening, according to the latest assessment by water regulator Ofwat. The regulator has reported that the unit costs of...

ELECTRICITY; British Energy 'threat to taxpayer' overlooked.
February 6, 2004... ly monitor the company's abilities to meet its liabilities"'. The NAO is reviewing the government's package of help for British Energy, which is also under investigation by Brussels as possibly breaching European Union rules on state-aid....

Profits in the pipeline.(Brief Article)
February 6, 2004... There are profits in the pipeline, or at least there appear to be, if the confidence of Roger Urwin, chief executive of National Grid Transco (NGT), in buying 32,000 of the company's shares is anything to go by. Could the sale of up to five of...

MMO2.
February 6, 2004... by Zoe Grainge Mobile operator MMO2 is quietly impressing analysts as it continues to extract value out of its three main operations in the UK, Germany and Ireland. Ahead of its key performance indicators this week, analysts at SG...

MVV.
February 6, 2004... by Nigel Hawkins MVV is Germany's fifth-largest electricity supplier, behind Eon, RWE, Vattenfall and EnBW. However, it remains very much a regional, rather than national, player in a market where domestic competition is becoming more...

WATER; New quality standards for drinking water.(Brief Article)
February 6, 2004... Water companies now have to comply with a range of new drinking water quality standards, the Drinking Water Inspectorate (DWI) has confirmed. New regulations replacing those introduced at privatisation in 1989 have come into force. These...

ELECTRICITY; Nuon to appeal ruling on Reliant conditions.(Brief Article)
February 6, 2004... by Simon Jones Dutch energy company Nuon is to appeal to the Netherlands' competition authority against the regulator's ruling on its acquisition of Reliant Energy Europe. Nuon and US company Reliant Resources agreed a e985 million deal...

ENERGY; MPs complain fuel poor grants miss the target.(Brief Article)
February 6, 2004... Parliament this week added to criticism of Warm Front, the government's flagship fuel poverty scheme, which MPs complained was poorly targeted, inflexible and poor value for money. According to a report from the Commons Public Accounts...

Order of the Phoenix.(Brief Article)
February 6, 2004... The story so far About 36 per cent of Northern Ireland's 1.5 million people live in Greater Belfast and fall into Phoenix's licence area. These are some 270,000 households out of the province's 680,000. Most of them - about 210,000 - are...

Energy policy makes waves.
February 6, 2004... The headlines have understandably concentrated on the fallout from Hutton but Parliament has had much else to keep it on its toes. This week the House of Lords is particularly busy with two Committee sessions of the Energy Bill, as well as...

ELECTRICITY; Romania moots power station sale.(Brief Article)
February 6, 2004... Overseas interest in the privatisation of Romania's power generation sector has begun to surface, the country's economics ministry signalled last week. Three of the country's fossil fuel plants have been provisionally put up for sale, each...

ELECTRICITY; Slovak sell-off faces delays.(Brief Article)
February 6, 2004... The privatisation of Slovakia's dominant power generator Slovenske Elektrarne (SE) faces the risk of delay unless the principles of Slovakia's secondary energy legislation are agreed soon. Bidders will be unable to make binding offers...

WATER; Broadband deal for Scottish Water.(Brief Article)
February 6, 2004... Scottish Water has signed an agreement to enable broadband cable to be run along its sewer network. Optical fibre supplier Fibrelink (Scotland) will pilot the project using the sewer network of the new Europarc business park development at...

WATER; Some lose out as Scots bills harmonised.(Brief Article)
February 6, 2004... Water bills in the east and west of Scotland are to rise by 5.1 per cent while customers in northern Scotland will pay 3.4 per cent less in 2004/05, deputy environment and rural development minister Allan Wilson has announced. The moves...

ELECTRICITY; Norway poised to beat Denmark at windfarms.(Brief Article)
February 6, 2004... Norway's strong industrial engineering base could be used to displace Denmark as the Nordic leader in windmill design and production, according to an Alternative Energy Market Analysis Report produced by Sintef Energiforskning, Norway's...

Centrica forward.
February 6, 2004... For Centrica, Spain means business. It has set up Luseo Energia to sell electricity in the Spanish market, one of Europe's most promising, with growth rates of about 3 per cent. Centrica sources say it is too early to give any revenue or...

MULTI-UTILITY; Polish audit criticises RWE over Stoen buy.(Brief Article)
February 6, 2004... A study by Poland's national audit office (NIK) has found that the October 2002 sale of leading power group Stoen to German multi-utility RWE breached provisions of energy privatisation policy and could threaten long-term security of supply....

ELECTRICITY; EDF Energy pays up early.(Electricite de France)(Brief Article)
February 6, 2004... EDF Energy's distribution business has offered to pay compensation to 1,800 customers for loss of supply ahead of receiving any claim, after high winds brought down lines last week. Gusts of up to 100km/hour affected supplies to 35,000...

ENERGY; Suez claims low EDF tariffs are strangling competition.(Electricite de France)
February 6, 2004... by Zoe Grainge French multi-utility Suez has attacked state-owned Electricite de France's (EDF's) low industrial user tariffs for being anti-competitive. Philippe Lermusieau, director of Suez subsidiary Energie du Rhone and a...

Blight ideas.
February 6, 2004... Britain's utility privatisation story began 20 years ago, and with it the system of RPI-X price regulation. Born of Hayek and Littlechild, the regulatory system was to be many things - a substitute for the market, a customer watchdog, a...

WATER; Capital supply threat as networks crumble.(Brief Article)
February 6, 2004... by Paul Garrett Regulation has resulted in underinvestment in London's water networks, leaving the capital's supply under growing threat, according to Thames Water managing director John Sexton. Sexton said this week that neglecting...

TELECOMS; Thus delivers free cashflow ahead of schedule.(Brief Article)
February 6, 2004... Telecoms provider Thus has become the first alternative operator to turn cashflow positive on a sustainable basis. The company announced it turned free cashflow positive in the third quarter of the financial year (October-December 2003)....

ENERGY; Transfer action warning.(Brief Article)
February 6, 2004... Energy regulator Ofgem said it was reluctant to use licence condition changes in a bid to improve the customer transfer process but warned energy suppliers that political pressure was building for action. That warning was delivered by the...

WATER; Ulster water spending to rise by 21%.(Brief Article)
February 6, 2004... Northern Ireland's water spending is on the up. Minister of state John Spellar has announced a 21 per cent rise in water and sewerage spending next year, taking the total from [pounds sterling]270 million to [pounds sterling]328 million in...

GAS; Gazprom seeks buyer for stake in Germany.(Brief Article)
February 6, 2004... ZGG-Zarubezhgaz, the Berlin-based subsidiary of Gazprom, wants to sell its 6 per cent stake in east German gas supplier Verbundnetzgas (VNG). ZGG chairman Joachim Gornig said the move followed several failed attempts to increase its...

TELECOMS; Vodafone surprises with subscriber growth levels.(Brief Article)
February 6, 2004... Investor response to better-than-expected performance figures from global mobile telecoms giant Vodafone was tempered by rumours that it was squaring up for a $30 billion-plus acquisition in the US. Vodafone unveiled the strongest organic...

TELECOMS; Xfera needs e1bn backer for 3G plan.(Brief Article)
February 6, 2004... Xfera, Spain's fourth-biggest but beleaguered telecoms company, is searching for a partner to invest e1 billion into the business to help it launch third-generation (3G) services this year. In a report, broker Merrill Lynch said Xfera was...

ELECTRICITY; Ofgem drops loss fee case as time runs out.
February 6, 2004... by Trevor Dooley After a humiliating error lost energy regulator Ofgem a judicial review of its proposed regional levies on power losses on the transmission network, the watchdog has dropped its proposal because it has run out of time. ...

TELECOMS; 3 to launch prepay to boost figures.(Brief Article)
February 13, 2004... Struggling third generation mobile operator Hutchison 3G may launch a prepay deal by the end of March. Hutchison, under the brand name 3, was hoping to boost subscriber numbers after a disappointing launch last year. The company won 210,000...

WATER; Energie set for expansion in Czech Republic.(Brief Article)
February 13, 2004... Austria's Energie, the new owner of two Czech water utilities, has said its recent acquisitions would create a foothold for expansion into Czech waste disposal, heat supplies and communal services. A spokesman said last week that Energie...

ELECTRICITY; BritishEnergy shares surge on false hopes.(Brief Article)
February 13, 2004... by Trevor Dooley British Energy shareholders face the prospect of yet another heavy slump after a week of surges, prompting the UK financial sector watchdog to consider a probe into the actions of the US company at the heart of the...

TELECOMS; BT seeks broadband tie-ups.(Brief Article)
February 13, 2004... Former incumbent BT has said it will have invested around [pounds sterling]22 million in its broadband roll-out by 2005 by setting up 35 public private-partnerships across the UK to bring broadband to areas where exchanges would not otherwise...

TELECOMS; Brussels unveils plan to boost broadband.(Brief Article)
February 13, 2004... by Keith Nuthall An Action plan to further spur growth in the key broadband and third-generation (3G) mobile sectors has been unveiled by the European Commission and will be presented to the European Union's spring summit in Brussels next...

ENERGY; German ministers in row over emissions.(Brief Article)
February 13, 2004... by Simon Jones Germany's power utilities and the country's economics ministry have rejected environment minister Jurgen Trittin's plans for larger-than-expected cuts in emissions from sites covered by the European Union Emissions Trading...

TELECOMS; UK operators 'are losing their battle with churn'.(Brief Article)
February 13, 2004... Half of Britain's telecoms companies do not have effective systems in place for measuring and combating customer loss, according to a report from predictive analysis company SPSS. Of those that did measure customer churn, over 40 per cent...

ElectricitY; Peers try to thwart approvals regime.(Brief Article)
February 13, 2004... The government came close to suffering an embarrassing parliamentary defeat last week when peers made a concerted bid to repeal the planning rules which allow the government to give consent to small infrastructure projects like power stations,...

TELECOMS; Czech watchdog hits Cesky with abuse fine.(Brief Article)
February 13, 2004... by Mark Andress The Czech Republic's state-owned telecoms operator Cesky Telecom has been fined e2.46 million for abuse of its dominant position in the Czech market by forcing 3,000 companies to sign disadvantageous contracts. The...

MPs to grill DTI and British Energy.(Brief Article)
February 13, 2004... Parliament was due to grill British Energy and the Department of Trade and Industry this week about the generator's financial troubles and how Whitehall dealt with them. The Commons Public Accounts Committee was due to hear from British...

GAS; North Sea decommissioning costs are still rising.(Brief Article)
February 13, 2004... The high costs associated with the decommissioning of North Sea infrastructure such as rigs and pipelines could pose a threat to future asset deals, the offshore industry has been warned. The warning came from energy and tax experts Ernst...

WATER; DTI denies relaxation in merger rules.(Department of Trade and Industry)
February 13, 2004... by Karma Ockenden The Department of Trade and Industry has denied that it is planning to open the floodgates to water mergers by changing the regime that governs water-water tie-ups. Utility Week sources said that the DTI was planning...

ENERGY; Push to end disconnections.(Energywatch)(Brief Article)
February 13, 2004... Consumer champion Energywatch has stepped up its bid to end energy disconnections by raising its concerns with MPs and and enlisting growing political support. The watchdog presented its case to the cross-party group on debt and personal...

WATER; Committee to probe green spending.(Brief Article)
February 13, 2004... The Commons Environmental Audit Committee has launched an inquiry into the environment programme in 2005-10 after reports that various groups wanted to slash the spending spelled out in water companies' draft business plans. A statement...

ENVIRONMENT; Commissioners in spat over Kyoto.(Brief Article)
February 13, 2004... A public spat over the Kyoto Protocol has soured relations between European Union environment commissioner Margot Wallstrom and energy commissioner Loyola de Palacio. Wallstrom criticised de Palacio in a briefing to journalists in...

ENERGY; MEP seeks early foreign carbon trade.(Mobile Electric Power )(Brief Article)
February 13, 2004... The European parliament's lead MEP scrutinising the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme wants participating companies to be able to 'earn' carbon credits from overseas schemes sooner than currently planned. Alexander de Roo, a Dutch...

ENERGY; Endesa battles with high euro and low prices.(Brief Article)
February 13, 2004... Spanish power group Endesa posted a 12.2 per cent drop in 2003 operating profit to e3.14 billion as the company struggled under low domestic energy prices and a soaring euro. Endesa's net profit, however, increased 3.3 per cent to e1.3...

Weathering the storms.
February 13, 2004... Despite a national blackout last year, Enel's domestic dominance is under no immediate threat . Nigel Hawkins reports. Late last month, Italy's incumbent electricity supplier, Enel, published its preliminary full-year figures for 2003. With...

Stitch-ups and flashes in the pan.
February 13, 2004... For some Westminster hostelries, Christmas came very early last week. Disconnector refers to the fact that after Ofgem staff were told about the wholesale reorganisation of the regulator, many repaired to the pub to drown their sorrows. By...

WATER; Farms hit by patchy pollution policies.(Brief Article)
February 13, 2004... The European Commission's diffuse pollution policies are being implemented patchily across Europe to the disadvantage of those who implement them most thoroughly, the UK's National Farmers Union (NFU) has warned. The NFU said last week...

WATER; Peers lay into Framework Directive regulations.(Brief Article)
February 13, 2004... Peers have torn strips off the government's regulations to implement the Water Framework Directive. Leading the fray, Liberal Democrat peer Baroness Miller called for the order issuing the regulations to be annulled on the grounds that the...

TELECOMS; France Telecom fixed-line revenues slide by 6%.(Brief Article)
February 13, 2004... French telecoms incumbent France Telecom has posted core fixed-line revenues for 2003 down 5.6 per cent to e21,761 million. The company's share price fell 6 per cent on the news, although the previous week it rose 6.8 per cent on the back...

Wired for sound bites.(Energy Networks Association)
February 13, 2004... Windfarms generate almost as many column inches as they do watts of electricity. And there are other revolutions on the horizon in the world of electricity, including the prospect of domestic scale generators. These changes are going to be a...

ELECTRICITY; Emissions trading may not affect bills so badly.(Brief Article)
February 13, 2004... The impact of the European Union's emissions trading scheme on UK electricity bills will not be as bad as many commentators have suggested, environmental research organisation Trucost claimed this week. The consultancy has looked at the...

To bid or not to bid?(Brief Article)
February 13, 2004... To bid or not to bid - that is the question facing Arun Sarin this week as he mulls over whether or not Vodafone should attempt a takeover of AT&T Wireless. The weekend press was divided on the wisdom of such a move. The Business pointed out...

GAS; NGT kicks off next stage of network sales.(National Grid Transco)(Brief Article)
February 13, 2004... National Grid Transco (NGT) has begun the next phase of its proposed disposal of up to five of its eight regional gas distribution networks. Last Friday was the deadline for submission of non-binding indicative bids and industry sources...

Lost in translation.( )
February 13, 2004... When you send out a direct mail pack to a customer or prospect, experience would probably tell you that if you have collected the right data, analysed and segmented it, added value to it, chosen the channel most appropriate for the consumer and...

Finding the silver bullet.
February 13, 2004... Here at Utility Week we will be sending out our latest subscription mailing in the next week or two. Obviously, we hope it will fulfil our expectations and generate the target amount of revenue. Certainly it should do, since it adheres to the...

TELECOMS; MMO2 tops forecasts on customer additions.(Brief Article)
February 13, 2004... by Zoe Grainge Mobile operator MMO2 beat analysts' expectations in the third quarter of 2003, winning 855,000 new subscribers over Christmas. Shares in the company rose 2.4 per cent to 84.75p on the news that the company had made a net...

Nuclear liabilities under fire.
February 13, 2004... Last week's critical report from the National Audit Office (NAO) into the way British Energy is monitored by Whitehall has once again thrown into sharp relief the issue of nuclear liabilities. These fall broadly into two categories: the...

Gelsenwasser.
February 13, 2004... by Nigel Hawkins Prior to the Berliner Wasser privatisation, the Gelsenwasser Group was, for many years, the foremost privately-owned water company in Germany - a country where the provision of water and wastewater services is still...

ELECTRICITY; Nordic wires merger slated.(Brief Article)
February 13, 2004... Nordel, the Stockholm-based state-funded agency responsible for pan-Nordic collaboration in cross-border energy transmission, has questioned the wisdom of government support in Finland and Norway for a merger between the region's four...

ELECTRICITY; Power sector split by Norsk legal challenge.(Brief Article)
February 13, 2004... by Gerard O'Dwyer EBL, Norway's energy industry association, has been attacked by the country's municipally-owned utilities for supporting Norsk Hydro's legal challenge to the government plan to provide cheap power to municipalities. Under...

WATER; Northumbrian credit rating set to rise.(Brief Article)
February 13, 2004... Northumbrian Water is set to regain its investment grade credit rating, according to credit research from BNP Paribas. The research said:'Events over the past seven or eight months have substantially altered the financial risk of the...

ENERGY; All change as Ofgem breaks with its past.(Brief Article)
February 13, 2004... by Roger Milne Energy regulator Ofgem is restructuring itself into five divisions after a root-and-branch review that will include a major shake-up for the watchdog's legal team. The post of general counsel has been scrapped and the...

WATER; Suppliers pan regulatory assessment of spending.(Brief Article)
February 13, 2004... Water industry suppliers have panned the current method of assessing the need for expenditure on sewers as inadequate. Carol Hickman, executive director of the Society of British Water and Wastewater Industries (SBWWI), has written a...

DTI under fire over BE crisis.(British Energy)
February 13, 2004... The government kept mum last week when the National Audit Office fired its broadside over the way the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) kept an eye on British Energy. Senior officials from the DTI and BE's new chairman, Adrian...