Enron Corp used Alberta as a testing ground for wholesale power trading schemes that would later become notorious in charges of price manipulation in California's energy crisis, an attorney with a Washington state public utility said on Friday. Enron, the bankrupt energy trader, artificially inflated electricity prices in Alberta as part of a scheme called "Project Stanley," as the province was deregulating its power sector in 1999, Snohomish County Public Utility District said, citing Enron documents and tapes made public this week.
"The Alberta deregulation scheme is sort of the miniature version of the California scheme, so it looks to us like they were testing out - this is a proof of concept for some of the things they were doing in California," said Eric Christensen, assistant general counsel for the utility.
The gaming tactics, with names like "Death Star," "Fat Boy" and "Ricochet," became known for raking in huge profits in California for Enron while the state reeled amid surging prices and rolling blackouts in 2000 and 2001.
At one point in the spring of 1999, Enron traders in Alberta were able to play the system to reap revenues of C$45 million ($36 million) in one day, while pushing the spot price of electricity up by about 10 times, according to an analysis prepared by Massachusetts-based Frontier Economics Inc.
The Snohomish County Public Utility District obtained the Project Stanley documents in a discovery phase of proceedings into Enron's activities before the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, where it is an intervenor.
It is aiming to have a $122 million lawsuit filed against it by Enron declared void.
Before it collapsed in the months following its Houston-based parent's bankruptcy in late 2001, Enron Canada was a top player in the country's power and gas sectors, trading about C$14 billion worth of the commodities annually.
In December 1999, Canada's Competition Bureau investigated "behaviour that appeared to be consistent with criminal bid-rigging" on the part of Enron and Powerex, a unit of BC Hydro, after being alerted by Alberta's power pool.
But the bureau closed its books on the matter in late 2000, saying it found no evidence the companies had colluded on bids.
"I'm assuming that they must not have had access to this evidence, so we're happy to provide it to the authorities up there if they're interested," Christensen said.
A Competition Bureau official in Ottawa said the watchdog was aware of the Enron evidence, but declined to say if it may reopen its probe as a result, citing legislation that prohibits commenting on potential moves.
Powerex has not been contacted by Alberta or federal authorities and did not expect to be because there is nothing new in the evidence, said Powerex spokeswoman Elisha Moreno.
"This is all of the same stuff, it's just been rehashed," she said.
"This doesn't mean anything for us. We were already exonerated of it. This doesn't raise any new concerns for us."
The Washington state utility said knowledge of the Canadian activities went "to the very top of the Enron organisation."
It released evidence it said were references to Project Stanley on at least two dates in former Enron chief executive Jeffrey Skilling's calendar as well as in taped telephone conversations of senior trading officials discussing the activities.
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