Entergy

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Entergy Corporation NYSE: ETR is a Delaware chartered corporation engaged in electric power production, retail distribution operations, energy marketing and trading, and gas transportation. It owns and operates power plants with approximately 30,000 megawatts of generating capacity. It has annual revenues of approximately $9 billion dollars, according to November 2004 SEC filings. The company, headquartered in New Orleans, Louisiana, is temporarily based in Clinton, Mississippi because of Hurricane Katrina.

Entergy has three main operating segments:

The U.S. Utility segment provides retail electricity services to approximately 2.6 million customers in Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas.

The Non-Utility Nuclear segment operates a total of ten nuclear power plants in New York (Indian Point Energy Center and FitzPatrick), Massachusetts (Pilgrim), Vermont (Vermont Yankee), Arkansas (Arkansas Nuclear One), Louisiana (River Bend and Waterford), and Mississippi (Grand Gulf). Entergy Nuclear also provides support services for the Cooper Nuclear Station through 2014. Entergy is the second largest nuclear power generator in the United States after Exelon Corporation.

Until quite recently, the Energy Commodity Services segment consisted chiefly of the company's share of a derivatives trading concern, Entergy-Koch, a joint venture co-owned by Koch Energy, Inc., a subsidiary of Koch Industries, Inc., Wichita, Kansas. On November 1, 2004, Entergy and Koch announced that they were selling this venture to Merrill Lynch & Co. Entergy expects to receive its share of the proceeds from this sale (ultimately grossing $1 billion) in a stream of payments continuing through 2006. Entergy's energy commodity segment also includes the Gulf South Pipeline, which is also up for sale.

On September 22, 2005 it was announced that a new reactor would be built at the Grand Gulf site (see Nuclear Power 2010 Program). The company also announced that it plans to obtain a license for a new reactor at its River Bend site, although the company has not decided whether to build it. The company's nuclear division is headquartered in Jackson, Mississippi.

[edit] History

Entergy presently considers Harvey C. Couch as its founder. Couch founded the three utilities that originally comprised what is now Entergy: Arkansas Power and Light Company (now Entergy Arkansas), Louisiana Power and Light Company (now Entergy Louisiana), and Mississippi Power and Light Company (now Entergy Mississippi). New Orleans Public Service Inc. (now Entergy New Orleans) was acquired later.

From 1949 to 1989, Entergy was known as Middle South Utilities, Inc. Though the construction of Arkansas Nuclear One started earlier, MSU turned toward coal and nuclear-fired plants in 1973 and 1974, the years of the first so-called oil shock.

MSU adopted the name Entergy in May 1989 at a shareholders' meeting in Natchez, Mississippi. The name is supposed to convey elements of synergy and a break with the connotations of the label "utility," of tradition-bound regulated monopolies. A new corporate logo (seen above) was also adopted. It is said to represent a sun (digitized) rising over the Mississippi River.

Also in 1989, MSU/Entergy wrote off one of the biggest losses ever absorbed by an electricity generating company. It wrote off $900 million it had invested in a never-completed nuclear reactor known as Grand Gulf unit 2, as part of a deal that settled litigation surrounding rate collection for its Grand Gulf unit 1.

In 1993, Entergy absorbed Gulf States Utilities, gaining nearly 600,000 customers; that utility is now known as Entergy Gulf States Louisiana and Entergy Gulf States Texas.

Entergy was impacted severely by Hurricane Katrina at the end of August 2005. Entergy New Orleans filed for bankruptcy protection on September 23, 2005.^[1] Lower revenue and storm restoration costs were cited. Parent company Entergy Corporation arranged $100 million in financing. Competitive arm "Entergy Solutions" was sold to Direct Energy as a result of Entergy Corporation's financial loss.

See also: Effect of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans