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TECO Energy is looking to raise some $346 million through an offering of 13.5 million common shares during the week of June 3 and will use the proceeds to help pay down $545 million in short-term debt, says Laura Plumb, a spokeswoman at the Tampa, Fla.-based energy concern.

Sierra Pacific Resources, the holding company for Nevada Power, says it could run out of cash needed for power purchases within a month. A planned $450 million bond offering by its Southern Nevada affiliate could ease the holding company's problems (Knight Ridder, 6/2).

David Peterson has retired as chairman, president and ceo of NRG Energy and Leonard Bluhm has resigned as cfo. Wayne Brunetti, chairman and ceo of Xcel Energy, will serve as acting chairman and ceo, while Excel's cfo, Edward McIntyre, will assume responsibility for all financial aspects of NRG (Reuters, 6/3).

Despite drastically scaling back its power trading operations last week, senior El Paso executives believe its merchant trading business could have continued to drive earning higher. However, the credit cost of running a large trading desk and the negative impact that the desk was seen having on El Paso's share price was deemed too great to support the operations.

Minneapolis-based NRG Energy has shortlisted Dominion, Duke Energy and Tractebel North America to purchase a 7,420 MW portfolio of generation assets in the south central region of the U.S. that it has put up for sale as part of a restructuring plan to improve liquidity. A banker close to the negotiations says the beleaguered independent power producer will likely announce the sale of the assets within the next month.

AEP Energy Services, the European wholesale energy marketing and trading subsidiary of American Electric Power, has received internal approval to start trading weather derivatives in Europe and plans to pull the trigger on its first trades in the coming months. Thor Lien, managing director in Oslo, says AEP will concentrate on structured products, such as precipitation index swaps for hydroelectric power plants. He adds the energy company will also structure products linked to temperature and, if there is demand, wind speed.

Deutsche Bank has landed a U.K. gas trader from Morgan Stanley in London. After a brief period of gardening leaveSimon Holmes will join the German bank later this month to kick start its gas trading effort, says a commodity trader at the firm. He adds the bank will primarily focus on marketing structured gas hedges to clients--rather than look to build a flow business--and is thus unlikely to hire any more gas traders in the near future. Prior to working at Morgan Stanley, Holmes traded the short end of the gas curve at TXU Europe. An official at Morgan Stanley declined to comment on the departure.

Lazard in New York has formed a utilities equity research practice and has hired Andre Meade, a utility analyst at Commerzbank, and his associate Andrew Smith, to provide coverage. They joined the investment bank on May 20 and will cover approximately 15-20 utilities and merchant energy companies including Duke Energy, Mirant, Dominion, Southern Co. and Reliant.

The Comision Federal de Electricidad, Mexico's national power company, expects to receive 15 bids by May 30 from companies looking to develop La Laguna II, a 450 MW combined-cycle gas-fired plant, and 19 offers for the CCGT Tuxpan V (479 MW) project by June 20. An official at the CFE says Spanish utilities Iberdrola and Union Fenosa, Electricité de France, Enel, AES and Canadian IPP TransAlta are among the large group of developers that will bid for both projects. Officials at the companies either declined to comment or did not return calls.

PSEG Global plans to tap the Chilean capital markets with a bond offering this fall to help refinance $300 million of bank debt that falls due this November, according to a banker close to the matter. He notes the bank debt consists of a $150 million senior loan and a similarly sized subordinated facility. The banking syndicate was led by J.P. Morgan and Citibank, both of whom are likely to work on the bond offering. The banker could not comment on the size of the offering as he says discussions are at an early stage.