Plants Shut Down and Sell the Energy ,
 ---------------------- Forwarded by John Arnold/HOU/ECT on 12/22/2000 07:25 
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slafontaine@globalp.com on 12/22/2000 07:11:26 AM
To: slafontaine@globalp.com
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Subject: Plants Shut Down and Sell the Energy



Subject:  Plants Shut Down and Sell the Energy



Plants Shut Down and Sell the Energy
By Peter Behr
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 21, 2000; Page E01
Kaiser Aluminum Corp. had planned to spend December making aluminum at its
giant smelters in the Pacific Northwest, run by electricity from the
Bonneville Power Administration's Columbia River dams. Then it saw a better
deal. With California desperate for power and electricity prices hitting
unheard-of peaks, Kaiser shut down its two U.S. smelters last week. It is
selling the electricity it no longer needs -- for about 20 times what it
pays Bonneville under long-standing contracts.
It is a measure of this winter's fuel crunch: Some big industrial firms in
energy-intensive sectors such as paper, fertilizers, metals and even
oil-field operations can make more money by selling their electricity or
natural gas than manufacturing their products. The shifts by such large
industrial consumers of energy -- described as unprecedented by analysts --
will free up more fuel for households and businesses this winter. But they
also are sowing seeds of potential problems next year. Shortages of aluminum
and fertilizer, for example, are likely to give another upward jolt to
consumer prices and further weaken the economy, analysts said.
"The fertilizer picture is particularly worrying us because we don't know
what they're going to use to grow crops with," said David Wyss, chief
economist at Standard & Poor's. Some economists have recently increased
their warnings about the damaging impact of this winter's heating bills on
an already weakening economy. Goldman Sachs analysts last week estimated
that gas heating bills will double this winter to more than $1,000 for a
typical U.S. household.
That and higher electricity prices will cost consumers $20 billion in higher
energy costs compared with a year ago, they estimated, cutting the expected
growth in the nation's economic output by one percentage point on an annual
rate in the first three months of next year. "Overall, the recent energy
price developments have thus added to the risk of a sharp economic
slowdown," the Goldman Sachs report concluded. Terra Industries Inc., in
Sioux City, Iowa, has closed three of its six U.S. ammonia plants, which use
natural gas as a main ingredient for fertilizer production. Like Kaiser, the
company realized it would be much more profitable to stop production in
December and sell the natural gas back to the market at current prices,
which are much higher than the price Terra was obligated to pay under its
existing December supply contract, said Mark Rosenbury, chief administrative
officer.
"We looked at these [current] prices and said, 'This is crazy,' " he said.
Terra hasn't disclosed the profit it will make selling its gas, but
Rosenbury said it would be "substantial."  In coming months, Terra's good
fortune could be reversed. It usually buys gas a month at a time, and the
prices for January delivery most likely will be well above its break-even
point. That would keep Terra's plants closed, Rosenbury said, but eliminate
the opportunity to sell the natural gas at a profit. "If this persists,"
Rosenbury said, "it's going to be a real problem."
He estimates that out of a total annual U.S. production capacity of 18
million tons of ammonia, about 4 million tons of production isn't operating
now. "Could we be short of fertilizer next spring? It's possible that
farmers will not have as much as they want," Rosenbury said. Royster-Clark
Inc., a Norfolk and New York City-based fertilizer manufacturer and
distributor, has shut down its one plant in East Dubuque, Ill.,
indefinitely, and 72 production workers will be laid off, beginning next
month. The story is the same -- natural gas prices are too high to justify
continued production. "We believe it's likely this is a speculative bubble
[in natural gas prices] that will burst and in a few weeks we'll be able to
buy gas at a more reasonable price, but that remains to be seen," said Paul
M. Murphy, the company's managing director for financial planning. A
continuation of high natural gas prices would likely shrink production and
raise fertilizer prices to a point that could affect farmers' decisions to
plant feed corn, he said. "It's sticker shock."
According to Wyss, if this winter remains unusually cold and natural gas
remains above $7 per million cubic feet -- double the level a year ago --
farm products could rise significantly a year from now and into 2002. In the
aluminum industry, several smaller producers have joined Kaiser, the
industry's No. 2 manufacturer, in closing down, noted Lloyd O'Carroll, an
analyst with BB&T Capital Markets in Richmond.
Aluminum production in November was 8.3 percent below that of November 1999,
and December's production will be lower still, he said. "We'll get more
production cut announcements, I think," he said. A slowing in the U.S. and
world economies next year could ease the impact of reduced aluminum
supplies. "But if the world economy doesn't fall completely apart, then
[aluminum] prices are going to rise, and they could rise significantly more
than the current forecast," he said. In Kaiser's case, it's an open question
how much of its electric windfall it will keep. Kaiser is contractually
entitled to buy electricity from Bonneville at $22.50 a megawatt per hour,
says spokesman Scott Lamb. That is the power it has sold back to Bonneville
for $550 a megawatt hour for December.
But the Bonneville Authority is pressuring Kaiser to use these and future
profits from power resales to compensate employees at the shut-down plants,
to invest in new electric generating capacity, or even to refund to
Bonneville's other customers, said Bonneville spokesman Ed Mosey. Kaiser and
Bonneville have negotiated a new power purchase deal to take effect after
next October, but the power authority says it intends to reduce deliveries
to Kaiser if the company tries to pocket the electricity sale profits. "Out
here, a deal is a deal, but it has to be a moral deal. There has to be an
ethical dimension to this and we're not shy in trying to make sure they live
up their advantage in having access to this publicly-owned power," Mosey
said.
, 2000 The Washington Post Company
phillip.allen@enron.com