Cinergy Acquires Pennsylvania Waste Coal Power Plant.

CINCINNATI--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 2, 1999--Cinergy Corp. (NYSE:CIN) announced today that its subsidiary, Cinergy Capital & Trading, Inc., has acquired a 30 megawatt electric generating plant in Schuylkill County, Pa., from Westwood Energy Properties Limited Partnership.

The facility is a fluidized bed waste coal unit located near Jolliett, Pa., which will be operated as a merchant plant with its output sold primarily into the Pennsylvania-Jersey-Maryland power pool. Cinergy will refurbish the facility and return it to service in May 1999. The plant has been idle since mid-1997 when it was shut down by its owning partnership, which later filed for bankruptcy.

"This acquisition is part of our stated and continuing goal of owning generating assets in key markets," said Madeleine K. Ludlow, president of Cinergy's energy commodities business unit. "Westwood is both environmentally attractive and strategically located in an area where electric markets are open to competition."

The Westwood unit is located in an area of anthracite coal mining and has readily available supplies of waste coal, also called culm, for fuel. Large piles of culm from decades of anthracite mining present an environmental risk that is reduced by burning the material in the unit's fluidized bed combustion boiler.

Construction and maintenance teams from Cinergy's power operations group will begin work next week to prepare the unit for operation. "This project is an opportunity made possible by our ability to reduce significantly the cost of refurbishing the facility through both the ingenuity of our people and our expertise in coal and coal products," said Ludlow.

The plant will employ 16 full-time personnel with a projected annual payroll of more than $1 million. Recruiting for open positions is currently being conducted in eastern Pennsylvania.

Cinergy Corp. is one of the nation's leading diversified energy companies. Its operating companies, The Cincinnati Gas & Electric Company and PSI Energy, Inc., serve more than 1.4 million electric customers and 462,000 gas customers in Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky. The company also owns a 50 percent interest in Midlands Electricity plc, a regional electric company in the United Kingdom serving 2.2 million customers. Cinergy is active in U.S. power markets and maintains a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week trading operation.