Jeff and Christie: It was a pleasure having you here on campus. Let me add my thanks to those of the Entrepreneurial Manager faculty who actually taught the case. I think your presence added enormously to the success of the maiden voyage of this case. As I indicated to you, I want to make the case even stronger by incorporating any additional data or suggestions that you may have after seeing it taught. Jeff, you indicated you had a couple of quick corrections, and I'd appreciate receiving those. Also if you have any thoughts about how we might enrich the case, those would be welcome too. Christie, as indicated in our discussions, I think some sense of the economics of Enron Online would be enormously helpful. Even if we have to use disguised data, can we break out the sales and profitability of the trading operations before the launch of Enron Online. With some indication of what the new Internet-based model will do to margins, students can do some simple calculations of the volume necessary to compensate, and therefore have some idea of the enormously ambitious (and significantly risky) venture that this turned out to be. I will gladly talk further about this with you directly or with whomever you want to put me in touch with. Let me emphasize that the data do not have to be actual data--we can
Answer: Your campus visit
The following is a web address of a magazine based in Whistler, Canada. A woman that I work closely with, Janet Love Morrison, is a huge human rights activist and during December's semester break she traveled to Burma. Her article is the 1st in a series of 4 and is the feature article, titled "Following the Path of Aung San Suu Kye." i thought it was rather impressive and so is she; I truly admire her courage. www.piquenewsmagazine.com Take a look as soon as possible... its the feature of the week and may not be up much longer. I will let you know when her next is published and posted.
Answer: Pretty cool...
COLUMBIA GAS TRANSMISSION CORPORATION NOTICE TO ALL INTERESTED PARTIES OCTOBER 18, 2001 Notice ID: 3193 5 - NO RESPONSE REQUIRED NOTE: The following is being provided by Columbia as notice to all of its shippers of potential outages or reductions in available capacity in the identified portions of the system due to construction activities, routine maintenance, modifications, tests or repairs undertaken to protect the integrity and performance capability of its storage and transmission facilities. The information provided below is subject to change for numerous reasons, including but not limited to, third-party controlled events and decisions, weather, work schedules, equipment availability, force majeure events, etc. Thus, while Columbia is willing to provide this notice and update it periodically as necessary, Columbia is unable to represent and warrant that the specific activities will occur, or that they will occur on or near the specified dates. SUBJECT: LINE SM-123 Columbia anticipates that between October 25th and October 27th, Line SM-123 will be taken out of service due to long-wall mining activity. Columbia estimates the line to be out of service for twenty-one (21) days. The start date and duration of the outage is contingent upon the actual timing and progress of the long-wall mining activity. Given the level of firm commitments in this area, Columbia believes that there will be no available capacity for interruptible transportation. The following receipt points will be affected: Equitable Gas: Beaver Creek (H1) Hi Hat (F3) CNR Pipeline: Boldman (CNR02) Conoway (CNR03) Johns Creek (CNR08) Canada (CNR09) Canada (CNR10) Stafford (CNR11) Thacker/Majestic (CNR12) Briar Mtn. (CNR13) Huff Creek (CNR14) Conoco: Grant (P1) The same is true with respect to any Appalachian production flowing directly into Columbia's Line KA between Columbia's Boldman Compressor Station and Columbia's Huff Creek Compressor Station as well as production flowing into Columbia's Lines SM-116, KA-15, PM-3 and PM-17. If you have any questions, feel free to contact your Customer Services Team.
Answer: LINE SM-123
Now that the celebrating has died down, lets decide whether to seek rehearing or clarification of the order. If there is anything in it that disadvantages us, we should consider rehearing, particularly since it is a nearly certain that our friends at SoCal will file a nasty one. (It might be good for Steve H. or Bill or whoever has the best relationship with SoCal to make a high level courtesy call to extend the olive branch and tell them that we'll work with them to minimize their concerns blah blah blah. At minimum, we'll probably learn if they do intend to seek rehearing) I see two things that may be worth seeking rehearing on: 1. The requirement that we disclose our discount agreements in 15 days. FERC really punted this issue. They say that "since the expansion capacity is fully subscribed we see no reason why Transwestern should not publicly disclose the agreements. . . . " This is the first time I've heard of any rule that if your project is fully subscribed you therefore lose your right to confidential treatment of sensitive pricing info. At minimum, we could argue that the requirement is arbitrary and capricious because FERC didn't even mention its normal regulations and procedures governing filing of discount reports. It just cited the certificate regulation that requires an applicant to "file" its rate information with the Commission (which we did) and ignores the regulation (Sec. 284.7(c)(6)) that doesn't require a pipeline to publicly disclose its discounts until 15 days after the close of the billing period to which the discount pertained. The commercial people need to decide if we care about this issue--i.e., how upset will the customers
Answer:
Gallup Order: PRIVILEGED AND CONFIDENTIAL, ATTORNEY CLIENT PRIVILEGE