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Iran has stopped electricity sales to Turkey in a possible conflict over a contract for natural gas supplies to its neighbor, a Turkish Energy Ministry official said Tuesday. Iran supplied some 280 million KWh last year, a fraction of Turkey's estimated annual demand of 134.7 billion KWh for this year. Some energy sector officials said Iran's decision came after Turkey's failure to buy all the Iranian gas it had contracted to purchase in the first quarter (Reuters, 5/14).

Peru's decision to postpone a controversial electric utility sale for the third time will not derail a privatization scheme designed to clinch needed fiscal revenues, the economy minister said on Friday. "Some of the bidders needed a little more time and I believe it's a perfectly reasonable request that will in no way derail the [electric utility privatization] process under way," according to the minister, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski (Reuters, 5/9).

Shares of Reliant Resources fell as much as 23% on Friday as the company took the unusual step of canceling a $500 million bond issue at the eleventh hour. The Houston-based company said it scrapped the issue so that it can look into "phantom" electricity deals that boosted its trading volumes but did not generate any profits for itself or its trading counterparties (Reuters, 5/10).

Paolo Scaroni, chief executive of U.K. glass maker Pilkington, will replace Franco Tato as chief executive of Italy's state owned energy company Enel. Piero Gnudi, chairman of Italian state holding company Iri, will become Enel's chairman (Financial Times, 5/14).

MidAmerican Energy Holdings is launching a $875 million loan funding the expansion of the Kern River natural gas pipeline, a deal which bankers say should be well received because of the high quality credit rating of the project and also the scarcity of gas transmission project paper. "People are loaded up on power paper and looking to diversify," says one project financier.

Tractebel Power is looking to arrange financing for the construction of a 343 MW natural gas-fired combined-cycle plant in Ennis, Texas, and has awarded lead slots to Denver-based CoBank and London-based Abbey National Treasury Services, say project bankers. While it is unusual for a European bank without a U.S.-based project finance team to lead an American project loan, one banker notes that because Tractebel Power is the subsidiary of a large European utility it has strong lending relationships in Europe. Bankers declined comment on the likely dollar size of the financing, or any of the terms, beyond saying the deal is unlikely to reach the market before June. Officials at Abbey and CoBank declined to comment.

Aquila's fledgling weather derivatives operation in London has lost two of its inaugural startup team with the recent departure of Sonny Kapoor, senior trader, and Peter Brewer, originator.

ABB Treasury and Energy Services has hired Richard Cockburn, a power options trader at U.K. utility Innogy, to trade the U.K. electricity market. Mark Meyrick, managing director and head of ABB's energy trading unit in London, says the hire reflects ABB's growing franchise in the U.K. power market. The unit is doing more business and needed to add another trader to its small desk, he explains. Meyrick notes Cockburn will trade both options and forwards in his new position. Cockburn is in between posts and could not be reached for comment. He joins ABB in July.

CIBC Capital Partners, a merchant banking affiliate of CIBC World Markets, is closing down its power technology venture capital unit, say market officials, and earlier this month laid off Jay Hatfield, managing director and head of power technology, and other high-ranking bankers in the group.Robert McCloud, a CIBC spokesman, confirmed that Hatfield and a handful of his colleagues had been handed pink slips, but declined to comment on the number of casualties or discuss the matter further.

U.K. transmission monopoly National Grid has been holding merger discussions with Northeast Utilities for the past few months and is planning to swoop for the U.S. utility toward the end of this year following the completion of its announced tie-up with Lattice, a U.K. monopoly gas pipeline business. A banker close to the negotiations says Northeast Utilities has retained Morgan Stanley to advise on the deal, but he declined to name National Grid's advisor.