Mr. Frevert: If you look at the core energy businesses that we're involved in, one of the dominant trends over the next several years will be continued deregulation and liberalization of many different markets. We're seeing, or will see, continued deregulation in the US electricity market; natural gas is already fairly well deregulated in North America; we're going to see increasing momentum toward deregulation in Europe, in both gas and electricity. We're seeing the initial stages of liberalization in Japan, and Australia has gone a long way already in terms of deregulating its market, so on a global basis, you're going to see continued strong trends toward liberalization and no turning back in terms of the deregulation of energy markets. Another trend you are also going to continue to see over the next couple of years will be a tight supply/demand balance in energy markets. Both gas and electricity markets will continue to be tight in nature and they will continue to experience increased volatility. These factors, among others, create a lot of opportunities for companies like Enron. I believe there will be a continued trend toward increasing reliance on e-commerce platforms for commodity transactions. Platforms, like EnronOnline, will facilitate growth in these markets and will be utilized by most end users and suppliers for their energy needs. An increasing reliance on technology and use of e-commerce platforms for commodity transactions is definitely another key trend. I think you're also going to continue to see outside energy in some of the markets we're involved in, such as paper and pulp, lumber, and steel, you are going to see a lot of old economy industries in transition over the next several years. As we take our wholesale energy business model and transfer that into these new industries, I think you are going to see very strong opportunities for companies like Enron to get leading positions in entirely new commodities outside of energy. These would be just a few of the trends that we see.
Tickers included in this excerpt: ENE
For more information call (212) 952 7433. The Wall Street Transcript does not endorse any of the comments made by interviewees, and does not make stock recommendations.

