I saw in the press that N.M. has delayed electric open access until Jan 1, 02 for residentials and small commercials and to July 1, 02 for large industrials. That increases the likelihood that the Pueblo project will have to dump power in the wholesale market at 4 Corners for a while before retail markets start to open up. One more thing to factor in. I'm expecting to hook up with Bill Votaw of Enron Federal Solutions today to talk about Langley's "sole source" procurement strategy with DOE. I hope to get Votaw on the phone with Langley's D.C. govt. contracts lawyers to discuss their theory. We should be in a better position to raise a flag if the sole source strategy is really a high risk approach. I'm not sure where that would leave us because the only other approach I can think of is to steer DOE into opening the power plant up for bids. Langley does not appear interested in trying to win an open bid for the power plant, although frankly we would probably have about as good a chance as anyone of winning. Once we clear up the government contracts issues (if ever) it seems to me that it would be time to expand the team to include Federal Solutions (potentially, if they see an angle to help them with their Kirtland outsourcing strategy) and ENA. The ENA involvement would be particularly important so we could get a line of specific turbine availability and the specifications/economics that would result. I'm probably engaging in wishful thinking again, but my hope is that the economics on a specific turbine/heat exchanger configuration work out a little better than the generic economics from the model that James ran. If we think this thing is a potentially viable deal after I talk to Votaw and the Langley DC team, we need to grab Bill Cordes and discuss whether we go to ENA "from the bottom up," or through Stan "from the top down" to get hooked into a deal team over there. Kevin, I still intend to hook you into the Votaw-DC call if you are available. Thanks. DF
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