EDITORS: Please do not use
"Pacific Gas and Electric" or "PG&E" when
referring to PG&E Corporation or its National Energy Group.
The PG&E National Energy Group is not the same company as Pacific
Gas and Electric Company, the utility, and is not regulated by the
California Public Utilities Commission. Customers of Pacific Gas
and Electric Company do not have to buy products or services from
the National Energy Group in order to continue to receive quality
regulated services from Pacific Gas and Electric Company.
PG&E NATIONAL
ENERGY GROUP COMPLETES $1.075 BILLION FINANCING FACILITY
Funds to be Used for New
Power Plants Under Construction
PG&E Corporation's PG&E
National Energy Group announced today that it has closed the first
tranche of a multi-project construction financing facility. This
$1.075 billion loan facility will be used in financing of the Athens,
Harquahala and Millennium projects.
The financing facility may
be expanded through additional bank participation up to a total
of $1.7 billion, which would cover a portion of the construction
of one additional project.
The proceeds of the financing
will be used to reimburse certain funds that PG&E National Energy
Group already has expended, as well as to finance the completion
of construction of these power generation projects. The Athens project,
a 1,080 megawatt gas-fired power plant in New York, and Harquahala,
a 1,092 megawatt gas-fired plant in Arizona, are under construction.
Millennium, a 360-megawatt gas-fired facility in Massachusetts,
entered commercial operation in April.
Joint lead arrangers for
this financing are Societe Generale and Salomon Smith Barney/Citibank.
Additional arrangers are JP Morgan Chase, ABN-AMRO and Royal Bank
of Scotland, with additional financing provided by the Export Development
Corporation of Canada, Credit Lyonnais, Barclays Bank, DZ Bank and
Toronto Dominion Bank.
Headquartered in Bethesda,
Md., PG&E National Energy Group, a unit of PG&E Corporation (NYSE:
PCG), develops, builds, owns and operates power generation and natural
gas transmission facilities and provides energy trading, marketing
and risk management services in North America. |