Aquila Launches Cost-Effective Energy Risk Management Service.

Business Editors

KANSAS CITY, Mo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 27, 2001

Aquila, Inc. (NYSE: ILA), one of the largest North American wholesalers of natural gas and electricity and risk management organizations, today launched Risk180(SM), a product that provides clients with full-service management of their commodity transactions, delivered to them daily, weekly or monthly via the Web.

Risk180 will be marketed to utilities, municipalities, energy aggregators and small energy marketers, as well as large industrial firms. These clients typically are low-volume traders that use spreadsheets to manage their energy transactions. The product was designed to meet the deal capture and portfolio valuation needs of clients who do not wish to purchase or build an expensive, enterprise-wide risk management software system.

Using a password-protected Web-interface, clients send Aquila their transactions or trades, which are then processed through the company's proprietary system. The client then receives daily, weekly or monthly risk analysis and deal pricing reports.

"What we are doing is making it possible for these clients to have access to a highly sophisticated trading organization, its skills and most important, its collective knowledge," said Jennifer Fisher, Aquila vice president and head of the Radius Group.

Aquila's Radius Group jointly developed Risk180 with SunGard Trading and Risk Systems, a leading energy risk management software firm. A key component of the Risk180 package is its use of SunGard's Epsilon software for risk analysis and client reporting.

Risk180 will initially handle only natural gas transactions. Power transaction capabilities will be added in the near future. Data available to clients includes detailed portfolio valuation, evening over-the-counter trade previews, mark-to-market income reports, total position reports as well as forward curves, deal capture and value-at-risk calculations. Additional information is available at www.aquila.com, or www.risk180.com

Based in Kansas City, Aquila is one of the top wholesalers of electricity and natural gas in North America and is an innovative provider of risk management products and services. The company also owns and controls a diverse portfolio of merchant assets, including power plants, gas storage, pipeline, and processing facilities, and other complementary merchant infrastructure facilities. Outside North America, Aquila provides wholesale energy services in the United Kingdom, Scandinavia and Germany. Aquila is 80 percent owned by UtiliCorp United (NYSE: UCU), a multinational energy company based in Kansas City with more than 4 million customers. It operates in the United States, Canada, New Zealand and Australia.