ATLANTA – Southern Company Energy Marketing, the energy marketing arm of Southern Energy Inc., announced today that first-quarter electricity and gas sales increased compared with the previous year.

Southern Company Energy Marketing sold 55.07 million megawatt-hours of electricity during the first quarter of 2000, compared with 43.32 million megawatt-hours during the same period in 1999. The company sold 6.9 billion cubic feet of natural gas a day in the first quarter of 2000, compared with 6.6 billion cubic feet a day during the same period in 1999.

A megawatt-hour of electricity will power a large commercial operation, such as a supermarket, for one hour. Under typical conditions, a cubic foot of natural gas will create enough heat to boil about 2 gallons of water.

Southern Company Energy Marketing, based in Atlanta, is jointly owned by Southern Energy and Vastar Resources Inc. Southern Company Energy Marketing provides energy marketing and financial services and other energy-related commodities, products and services to customers in North America. Southern Energy, a unit of Southern Company, develops, builds, owns and operates power production and delivery facilities and provides a broad range of services to utilities and industrial companies around the world. Southern Energy has operations in 12 countries on five continents.

Southern Company (NYSE: SO), the largest producer of electricity in the United States, is also the parent firm of Alabama Power, Georgia Power, Gulf Power, Mississippi Power and Savannah Electric.

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