Mirant Corporation Q2 2009 Earnings Call Transcript

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2009-08-07 11:32:21.0

Tags: Performance, Call Transcript, Earnings, Value-added Reseller, RBC Capital Markets, Retail, Performance Management, Channel Management, Human Resources, Workforce Management, Marketing, Seeking Alpha, Mirant Corp.

Question-and-Answer Session

Operator

Thank you. (Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from Lasan Johong - RBC Capital Markets.

Lasan Johong - RBC Capital Markets

Very interesting from the perspective of the prop trading thing that you guys are doing. It sounds like it's starting to become a major focus for you guys. I wanted to see what kind of risks - I don't if that's the best way to put - but what kind of risks you're taking, what kind of VARs you are trading around. And, related to that, in 2010 guidance are you assuming zero in your EBITDA for prop trading?

Ed Muller

All right, let me see if I can take this and answer your questions.

First of all, let me repeat - we have a variety of risk controls that have been and remain in place, and we have not altered them at all. We've just had very good performance within the same risk criteria that we have set.

We expect prop trading in '10 to be profitable and to continue, just not as profitable as this year. This year is just particularly good.

And I think in general I've covered your questions. I think we describe our VAR in the 10-Q, don't we, Bill or Gary?

J. William Holden, III

We describe how we use it. I don't think we actually include that.

Ed Muller

That's fine. But we have not changed it. It was just a very good performance.

Lasan Johong - RBC Capital Markets

Demand was down, you said. Was it straight across the board or was there a specific sector, such as the industrial, that had kind of a high concentration of impact?

Ed Muller

Well, remember, we are not a utility; we are a wholesale generator. We deliver the power. And so we rely on what the regional transmission organizations tell us. And so we don't know. But given what we're seeing in general across the country, I suspect you've got a big chunk of this that is industrial. And I note that it is down in the off peak, so any notions that it's coming, for example, from demand-side management and so on, I think, would be false.

Operator

Your next question comes from Brian Russo - Ladenburg Thalmann & Co.

Brian Russo - Ladenburg Thalmann & Co.

It looks like your base load generation volumes were up quite significantly, both in the Mid-Atlantic and the Northeast. Could you just kind of break that down? How much of the increase was attributable to the absence of outages and then what can be attributed just to performance?

 

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