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The California Public Utilities Commission has penciled in a string of conditions to the acquisition of the Lodi Gas Storage facility in Northern California by Aquila and ArcLight Capital Partners, a move that has temporarily iced plans for a $200 million project level loan to fund the deal. Co-bookrunners DZ Bank and Union Bank of California were sounding out banks on taking co-arranger slots a couple of weeks back (PFR, 8/12). The conditions are in draft form, and have yet to be approved by the commission, but they need to be clarified before the loan can proceed, says one banker. DZ and UBoC officials declined comment.

Element Re Capital Products has hired Vijay Raghavan from the risk and derivatives team at ABN AMRO as senior v.p. heading up research and product development at the weather shop. Raghavan, who has already left ABN, starts at Element Re in about month and replaces Bob Henderson, who joined J.P. Morgan earlier this year (PFR, 4/8).

Goldman Sachs has snagged another Institutional Investor ranked utility analyst, having lost All-American Fixed-Income first teamer Robert Rubin to Deutsche Bank last month. Peter Quinn, a fixed-income utility analyst at J.P. Morgan in New York, joined Goldman earlier this month. Quinn took runner up spot in Institutional Investor's fixed-income utility rankings announced earlier this month. Rubin took poll position for the third time.

The regulated wires sector, typically viewed as the least exciting corner of the U.K. power market, briefly take center stage over the next few months as two of its leading playersWestern Power Distribution and Midlands Electricity go on the auction block.

Aquila's weather derivatives team is looking to take some of the partnerships it has formed with reinsurers to a new home, following Aquila's decision to exit the trading business. The 18-strong weather team has yet to find a new employer (PFR, 8/19), but an official close to the matter says its reinsurance partners want to stay in the weather business and adds this leaves open the possibility that the team can offer them to potential employers as partners that can share overhead costs and also provide a fee-based income stream.Ravi Nathan, head of the group, declined comment.

Bankers are beating a path to Des Moines, Iowa-based MidAmerican Energy, the energy arm of Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway empire, hoping to land the mandate to arrange non-recourse debt financing for its $1.8 billion acquisition of the Northern Natural Gas pipeline business from Dynegy. The chance of scooping the deal is leaving bankers salivating, not only because of the cashe of working for Buffett, but also because MidAmerican's last pipeline financing proved such a crackerjack deal; the Kern River pipeline loan was probably the most sought after deal in the energy sector this year (PFR, 7/1).

Electricité de France and its lead bank Société Générale are close to launching a $217 million, 16-year project loan to finance the construction of Rio Bravo III, a 500 MW gas-fired plant in northern Mexico. A project financier says syndication is slated for September and that the financing should be wrapped up during the fourth quarter. He adds that SocGen is planning to invite a large number of banks to participate in the deal, but declined comment on the specific banks or the ticket sizes it will offer. Calls to SocGen and EdF were not returned by press time.

Following is a directory of upcoming projects and related financing in the Latin American power sector. To report new deals or provide updates, please call Amanda Levin, Reporter, at (212) 224-3292 or email: alevin@iinews.com.

The Jackson Electric Authority (JEA) issued $211 million of bonds a couple of weeks ago, allowing it to slice $15.7 million from its annual funding bill, according to Helen Kehrt, director of financial management services in Jacksonville, Fla. The deal allowed it to refinance a $137.9 million bond offering issued in 1993 and another $69.3 million offering placed in 2000, both of which have maturities ranging from 2005-2018.

Dallas-based TXU Corp. issued $349 million in common stock two weeks back to settle contracts tied to an equity-linked securities offering it placed some four years ago to fund its 1998 acquisition of U.K. utility, Energy Group. Tim Hogan, investor relations manager, characterizes the issue as a follow-on from the original funding and as such was led by Merrill Lynch, which also led the first deal.