Peoples Energy, Dominion Form Alliance to Serve
Chicago Area Residential Energy Market
CHICAGO — Peoples Energy Corporation (NYSE: PGL) and Dominion
(NYSE: D) today announced an alliance to market retail gas and electricity to
the nearly 3,000,000 residential consumers in Chicago and Northern Illinois.
Residential customers in the region can begin to select their energy provider
beginning in May 2002.
Under the agreement, Dominion’s retail marketing arm, Dominion
Retail, Inc. and Peoples Energy subsidiary Peoples Energy Services will jointly
perform marketing and customer service for residential natural gas and electricity
customers in the Chicago area.
“This alliance leverages the respective strengths
of both companies to meet the energy needs of households throughout the dynamic
metropolitan Chicago market,” said Tom Patrick, president and COO of Peoples
Energy. “The Peoples-Dominion alliance promises residential customers excellent
service and stable prices.”
“Through experience, we know customer choice programs
won’t work unless they bring consumers reliable energy products and services
at competitive prices,” said Thomas F. Farrell, chief executive officer of Dominion
Energy. “Our cost-efficient approach to marketing can deliver the savings and
stability promised by customer choice programs. This is part of Dominion’s overall
plan to balance its energy producing assets with retail customers who actually
use energy, and is a key component in our price risk management program.”
This alliance is the second partnering between Peoples Energy
and Dominion, building upon their successful joint development of power generation
assets. Through Elwood Energy, LLC., the partners co-own and operate a 1350-megawatt
gas-fired power plant 60 miles southwest of Chicago. Elwood began operations
in 1999, and is one of the largest independent peaking power generation facilities
in the country.
Dominion is one of the most experienced residential energy
marketers in the nation and its "choice" programs have brought savings to hundreds
of thousands of customers. It has conducted over 200 campaigns since 1997 and
has over 700,000 retail customer accounts for natural gas, electricity and related
products and services.
Peoples Energy is a diversified energy company comprised
of five primary business segments: Gas Distribution, Power Generation, Midstream
Services, Retail Energy Services, and Oil and Gas Production. The Gas Distribution
business serves about 1 million retail customers in Chicago and northeastern
Illinois. Visit the Peoples Energy web site at PeoplesEnergy.com.
Dominion is one of the nation’s largest producers of energy,
with a production capability of more than 3 trillion British thermal units of
energy per day. Dominion serves nearly 4 million retail natural gas and electric
customers in five states. For more information about Dominion, visit the company’s
web site at www.dom.com. .
