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Our Subsidiaries
Wholesale Energy Operations A Regional Market Leader
Natural Gas and Oil Production
• Development strategy focuses on long-lived gas reserves.
• 2006 production – 14.4 Bcfe – was the ninth consecutive
increase, up 5% over 2005.
• 199 Bcfe reserves at year-end 2006, with natural gas comprising
83% of the total.
• Acquired 18,000 net acre leasehold with approximately
proven reserves located in the Piceance Basin in western
in 2006; complements existing operations in that region;
drilling program with substantial proven undeveloped
• Production is concentrated in San Juan Basin of New
Piceance Basin of Colorado and Powder River Basin of
with additional production in several other states.
Coal Mining
• Our Powder River Basin coal mine near Gillette, Wyoming
supports low cost, mine-mouth power generation.
• 2006 production: 4.7 million tons.
• 285 million tons of coal reserves at year-end 2006 – a 50-plus year supply at expected production rates.
Energy Marketing
• Focusing on energy delivery, our primary business is marketing and moving natural gas from the Rockies and Canada to markets in the West.
• Natural gas marketing includes origination services for consumers and producer services for suppliers.
• Average daily marketing physical volumes in 2006:
natural gas – 1.6 million MMBtu, up 12%; crude oil – 8,800 barrels as of May 1, 2006.
Power Generation
• 989 MW of power generation capacity.
• Plants concentrated in Colorado, Nevada, Wyoming and California.
• Nearly all our capacity is under long-term contracts with load-serving
electric utilities.
• We serve growth markets in the West by providing coal-fired and
natural gas-fired generation for baseload and peaking power capacity.
• Power plant fleet availability of 93.4% reflects plant outages in
Las Vegas earlier in 2006; availability in 4th quarter 2006 of 99%
demonstrated a return to our superior service standard.
Retail Services... Committed To Our Customers
Black Hills Power
• Electric utility serving about 64,000 customers in western South
Dakota, southeastern Montana, and northeastern Wyoming.
• 435 MW of power generation plus 50 MW of purchased
power under long-term contract.
• Power plant fleet availability was an impressive 97.1%,
even with the planned major maintenance outage of the
Wyodak power plant.
• 415 MW peak demand, set in July 2006.
• In 2007, we increased rates for the first time in 11 years, with
a $7.9 million, or 7.8% increase; automatic cost adjustments
for transmission and coal fuel costs were included, with a provision
for cost-sharing on natural gas and purchased power costs under
certain conditions.
• Ability to sell surplus power off-system provides upside to
investors and cost containment benefits for customers.
• Contract wholesale customers include City of Gillette,
Municipal Energy Agency of Nebraska, and MDU, the utility
serving Sheridan, Wyoming.
• Unique access to both eastern and western power grids;
AC-DC-AC transmission tie provides 70 MW of bi-directional
transmission capacity.
Cheyenne
Light, Fuel & Power
• Electric and natural gas distribution company serving 39,000
electric customers and 33,000 gas customers in Cheyenne and
other parts of Laramie County, Wyoming.
• 163 MW peak electric demand.
• 4.4 million dekatherm annual retail gas delivery and 920,000
MW-hours of electric sales.
• Construction under way for Wygen II, a 90 MW mine-mouth,
coal-fired power plant with commercial service expected January 1,
2008; current rate case requests the facility to be a rate-base asset.
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