ATLANTA - The state's No. 4 natural gas marketer has agreed to a merger with the fifth-ranked company, creating a gas retailer serving more than 267,000 customers in Georgia. <br>
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Under the agreement, New Power Co. will be taken over by Energy America's parent company, British conglomerate Centrica, forming a partnership that will challenge the No. 3 marketer, Shell Energy. <br>
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Georgia Natural Gas and SCANA are the state's No. 1 and No. 2 gas retailers. <br>
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The merger will reduce the number of gas marketers in Georgia to seven. There were 19 after the Legislature deregulated the gas market three years ago. <br>
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Centrica and New Power's parent, announced a deal Saturday under which Centrica will acquire Purchase, N.Y.-based NewPower for $1.05 a share, or about $130 million. <br>
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The deal, expected to close in April, is subject to federal regulatory approval and the bankruptcy court overseeing Enron Corp. <br>
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New Power is 44 percent owned by Enron and has been struggling after Enron's collapse. It has 200,000 customers in Georgia under fixed-price agreements for a year or more. Energy America's 67,000 Georgia customers are billed based on variable prices subject to change with market conditions. <br>
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A spokesman for Centrica said Monday that the British company will honor New Power's fixed-price agreements. <br>
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Centrica has ``no immediate plans'' to combine the two operations in Georgia, spokesman Nicholas Fulford said. In the long term, some combination of functions is likely, he said. <br>
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NewPower Holdings, which was spun off by Enron in October 2000, reported a loss of $212.8 million loss in 2001, excluding $114.6 million in charges. The charges included $90 million related to the company's cancellation of energy supply agreements with Enron following the Texas company's bankruptcy declaration. <br>
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New Power has 805,000 gas and electric customers in 10 states. Centrica supplies gas to 1.3 million customers in the United States and Canada, and 18 million in Great Britain, where it operates as British Gas.
