Southern Company Energy Marketing, the energy trading and marketing arm of Southern Energy Inc., announced today that second-quarter electricity sales increased by 21 percent. Natural gas sales declined by 8 percent.

“Southern Energy’s newly acquired electricity generation and the output available to our energy traders had a direct impact on electricity sales,” said Marce Fuller, president and chief executive officer of Southern Energy. “This is another sign that our strategy to associate assets with our trading operation is working.”

Southern Company Energy Marketing sold 48.2 million megawatt hours of electricity during the second quarter of 1999, compared with 40 million megawatt hours during the same period in 1998. For the first half of 1999, the company sold 91.5 million megawatt hours, compared with 80.8 million for the first half of 1998, an increase of 13 percent.

Southern Company Energy Marketing

2nd Quarter and
Six-Month Sales 1999 1998 Difference
Total |   % Power, 2nd Qtr.
MWH, in millions

48.2

40.0

8.2

21% Power, Six Months
MWH, in millions

91.5

80.8

10.7

13% Gas, 2nd Qtr.
bcf/day

4.3

4.7

(0.4)

(8%) Gas, Six Months
bcf/day

5.5

4.9

0.6

12%

The company sold 4.3 billion cubic feet of natural gas a day in the second quarter of 1999, compared with 4.7 billion cubic feet a day during the same period in 1998. For the first half of 1999, the company sold 5.5 billion cubic feet a day, up 12 percent from the first half of 1998’s 4.9 billion cubic feet per day. Southern Company Energy Marketing attributed the decline in second-quarter gas sales to a decline in market liquidity, along with expected temporary interruptions in trading while merging its Houston trading floor into its Atlanta trading floor.

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 roughly two 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 trading, 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 supplies electricity in 10 countries on four 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.