More than 500 top executives from around the world gathered in New York on November 30, 2006, to honor the energy industry´s "Best of the Best." The Platts Global Energy Awards showcased extraordinary accomplishments from energy businesses worldwide. This year´s nominees illustrate true innovative spirit and enduring commitment to customers, shareholders, and future generations.
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CEO of the Year Commercial Technology of the Year Community Development Program of the Year Downstream Business of the Year Emissions Energy Project of the Year Energy Company of the Year Energy Pioneer Award Energy Transporter of the Year ENR/McGraw-Hill Construction Energy Construction Project of the Year Global Energy Project of the Year Hydrocarbon Producer of the Year Industry Leadership Award Lifetime Achievement Award Marketing Campaign of the Year Petrochemicals Company of the Year Power Company of the Year Rising Star Award Rationale Precision and commitment dominate 2006 AwardsA new breed of energy player dominated the 2006 Platts Global Energy Awards - companies and individuals who place extreme emphasis on two things: precision and full commitment. Evident in winners across the board was their supreme ability to focus on goals - whether in turning around a failing business or completing a complex engineering project to schedule. Equally evident was the importance of belief: be it in the importance of sustainable development, corporate ethics, or the viability of renewable energy. These are not "walk the walk, talk the talk"-ers but companies and people who are genuinely committed to a purpose in life and have the clarity of vision and the abilities to fulfill that purpose. Plenty of energy companies made money, even record profits, in 2005. What distinguishes this year's winners is that in many cases they have already moved beyond the windfalls of high energy prices, investing in sustainable futures and planning long-term sustainable strategies. The 2006 winners, together with the judges' rationale, follow: CEO of the YearIgnacio Sánchez GalánIberdrola, S.A.SpainEvery CEO in the world puts together a "strategy" each year. Most are pale imitations of real strategy - descriptions of an existing business, or modest extrapolations of the current state of play. It takes a truly exceptional leader to formulate a plan for actual change and then to implement it, year after year, and succeed. But this is what, in the opinion of the 2006 judges, Iberdrola's Ignacio Sánchez Galán has triumphantly succeeded in doing. He has in effect completely transformed his business since 2002, creating a five-year plan which he completed a year ahead of schedule. The vision? To double the profits of the company in five years and create the world's largest wind energy company. Starting with what was in 2001 a modest Spanish electric company, Galán has invested $15.2 billion in a bold "green" international expansion since then. He has a market cap of $30.6 billion, 27,895 MW of environmentally friendly installed capacity and more than 17 million customers. Eight million of those are now in Latin America. Iberdrola has 4,004 MW of installed wind capacity, and targets 6,200 MW by 208 and 10,000 MW by 2010. Iberdrola is on track in 2006 to achieve its stated net income objective of $2 billion, one year ahead of target, and increased its profits in full-year 2006 by 15.6%. Galán stands out among CEOs for the directness of his vision, his courage in sticking to what he believes in - for example in recent negotiations with Spain 's energy regulators - and for his commitment to an ethical and sustainable business model that is consistently ahead of the Kyoto curve. In addition to winning this year's coveted Platts Global Energy Award for CEO of the Year, was voted "Best CEO for Investor Relations" by IR Magazine for three years in a row, for the FT Global 250 in 2005, Euro Stoxx top 50 in 2004, and for the non top-50 in 2003. In addition to his role as CEO, he became Chairman of Iberdrola in April 2006. Community Development Program of the YearEcoEléctricaPuerto RicoEcoEléctrica is a small electrical utility in Puerto Rico, with revenues of just $313 million and profits of $59 million. Yet in the opinion of the judges, its efforts in community development outshine those of much larger energy business around the world for sheer commitment and social responsibility. Beginning operations in 2000, the company operates the only natural gas-fired power plant in Puerto Rico, and has the distinction of being the first independent power producer in the world to integrate a power plant with an LNG terminal. But that isn't why it won this award. Based in a depressed area in the south of Puerto Rico, the company chose from the outset to try at all times to be a source of economic regeneration. Towns in the area are plagued by unemployment, few educational opportunities and industrial waste contamination from a now-defunct petrochemical industry. EcoEléctrica created a social engagement plan that it calls "EEE" - Employment for the community, Education, and Environmental enhancement. Rather than importing labor and skills, it chose even during the plant's construction phase to hire from the community, creating over 1,000 direct and indirect jobs just during construction. Today 82% of its employees are from the local community. In education the company invests annually in a college scholarship program for forty students, and contributes materials and equipment for schools. Its environmental program stresses knowledge and protection of corals, sea grass and manatees; promoting land conservation and environmental education. It donated half the funds needed to purchase 85 acres of the Convento Cave, the only ecosystem in Puerto Rico found in an arid zone that has an underground river. Its employees join forces with area fishermen in annual beach cleanups; help organize the annual recycling contest in 38 schools in Puerto Rico's south; organize and participate in blood drives among several companies in the area. They coach sports teams in their community which are sponsored by the company; and they organize fundraising activities for humanitarian causes, receiving matching funds from the company. Small, in this case, is beautiful. Commercial Technology of the YearSmart GridCURRENT Communications GroupUSAThis award is for the development and deployment of innovative technology that both works and makes money - a surprisingly tough call in today's competitive technology environment. This year's judges had little hesitation in giving the award to the CURRENT Communications Group for its transformational, and already commercially successful, deployment of "Broadband over Powerline", or BPL, technology on behalf of TXU. In December 2005, CURRENT and TXU Electric Delivery announced a deal in which CURRENT will turn TXU's Texas power distribution network into the world's largest broadband-enabled grid - the so-called Smart Grid. TXU has committed to spending $150 million with CURRENT on the technology over the next ten years. In essence, BPL allows the grid to talk to itself, providing feedback to the utility on the health of the distribution system and allowing utilities to control and monitor millions of devices along the grid. It permits automated meter reading, failure prediction for transformers, identifying issues with distribution lines, and advanced demand control systems. The TXU-CURRENT Smart Grid will initially serve over two million customers. CURRENT has also deployed its technology in Cincinnati, Ohio, in partnership with Duke Energy; and Smart Grid is also in operation in Hong Kong. The value add for utilities is self-evident and the future potential virtually unlimited. Downstream Business of the YearAnonima Petroli Italiana SpA (API)ItalySmall but highly successful, API impressed this year's judges with the precision and efficiency of its operations and ambitions over 2005 and 2006. API is an oil refining business that is rapidly expanding in other areas . It has not only successfully built a major fuel retail network but also expanded into power generation - a business that in 2005 accounted for 37% of its profits. Helped by rising oil prices, the company grew its consolidated production value by 59% in 2005 to $3.4 billion, and upped its EBITDA by a strong 82% in the same period. Net profits were up 91%. The purchase from ENI in 2005 of the IP distribution network propelled API to the number one spot in Italy in distribution capability, with 4,527 retail gasoline outlets. It ranks third in the country by volume. It owns one of Europe's most modern and technologically advanced refineries - the Falconara Marittima plant, an 85,000 b/d facility which boasts within it one of Europe's first Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle power plants. The IGCC plant converts heavy residues from the refining process into syngas to generate 2 billion kWh/year, 30% of the energy requirements of Italy 's Marche region. The refinery itself scores close to a 10 on the Nelson Complexity Index, a measure of secondary conversation capability. It has already implemented a 10ppm sulfur gasoline specification - not in force until 2009 in Italy - and will meet 2010 diesel standards by the end of this year. API also operates a bio-diesel blender. Energy Company of the YearIberdrolaSpainYou can have the greatest ideas in the world, but ideas are nothing without implementation. Already acknowledging Iberdrola's CEO and Chairman Ignacio Sánchez Galán as a star of the energy CEO world, the judges felt it appropriate too to recognize the extraordinary achievements of Iberdrola's 18,000 employees in implementing Galán's vision. As an example of what can be achieved through focus, Iberdrola's performance in recent years, and in particular in 2005-6, is hard to beat. The company has over 100 years of history behind it, but has really begun to make waves since the start of this decade, exploding from a second-rank Spanish utility to a leading international player with a presence in 28 countries. It has become a standard of international reference in the renewable energy sector for its remarkable growth and record in wind generation. In the first half of 2006, Iberdrola had 4,004 MW of installed wind capacity, with 308 MW of those outside its native Spain . In 2005, net profits were up 15.6%, and EBITDA by 16%. Iberdrola's environmental policies are industry-leading - not only does the company actively advocate and implement Kyoto compliance, it has pioneered the commercialization of Green Energy and ranks third in the world in terms of managing greenhouse gas emissions. It has 17-plus million customers worldwide, delivered 120 TWh of distributed energy in 2005, and sold 51,985 GWh of gas. Quality of supply has jumped 50% as a result of an innovative program of integration, automation and real-time distribution management. In 2005, the company completed 25 R&D projects and invested $69.12 million in over 120 projects. The first GE-9FB gas turbine in the world was commissioned. Meanwhile through innovative marketing efforts and the launch of a range of tailored customer products, in particular multi-utility products for domestic and business clients, corporate brand awareness of Iberdrola in Spain jumped in 2005 from 66.9% to 75.1%. 2006 was the second year in which Platts' international panel of judges, leading industry experts all,ý have had the freedom to award Energy Company of the Year to any finalist in any field. It is a testimony to the company's success in multiple fields that they had no hesitation in giving this most prized award to Iberdrola. Energy Pioneer AwardEnerNOC, INCUSAThis was a new award for 2006, designed to recognize a business that is breaking new ground in the industry - investing in opportunities others have missed, or leading the way in innovative solutions to problems. The award's first winner is a perfect example of this pioneering spirit. EnerNOC is only five years old, founded by two graduate students in 2001. In 2003, its revenues were just $100,000. By 2004, they had grown to $1 million; by 2005 to $10 million; and by 2006 to $25 million. How? The company is a pioneer in aggregated electricity demand response management on a large scale - the intelligent monitoring and reallocation of demand from a wide array of customers to prevent grid crisis. EnerNOC's Network Operations Center allows it to connect customers' facilities across any region to create a Negawatt Network. The NOC remotely monitors and controls customers' energy assets (e.g. lights, HVAC, generators, etc. ) in real-time and dispatches these assets to help avoid blackouts and reduce high wholesale market prices. Throughout July and August 2006, when every region in the country set a new record for peak electrical demand, EnerNOC was called upon repeatedly to instantaneously dim lights at hundreds of grocery stores, turn on generators at data centers, and even shift a manufacturer's production line to its third shiftýthis load reduction was done remotely and over the internet. ISO-NE, NYISO, and CAISO all stated that demand response helped prevent blackouts this summer when peak demand completely exhausted supply resources. Demand response management is not a new idea - utilities have offered it to their largest customers for years. But EnerNOC has demonstrated demand response can work by aggregating large numbers of much smaller businesses. Its systems control demand remotely, modifying customer load and transferring demand to backup generators via the internet, and notify customers of demand response events by email, phone, pager and fax. The company is active in New England, PJM, California and New York. Energy Transporter of the YearPJM InterconnectionUSAIn 2005, PJM's CEO Phil Harris was named Platts Global Energy Awards CEO of the Year. It is perhaps not surprising, then, that his organization snapped up this new award, aimed at recognizing excellence in the movement of energy - whether electricity, or the physical transportation of natural gas, coal or oil. PJM's capacity for innovation, its spectacular expansion in recent years, and its ability to handle seemingly ever-increasing system load were the thee things that impressed judges the most. In 2005, completing the last of a series of market integrations that doubled its size over several years, PJM delivered 728 million megawatt-hours of electricity. It manages a the world's largest centrally dispatched transmission grid, serving 51 million people in 13 US states, plus the District of Columbia. It made total billings of a record $22.6 billion, bringing total billings since PJM's wholesale markets opened in 1997 to more than $64 billion. Keeping the PJM grid running involves managing over 1,270 generators whose output passes through 6,038 substations and 56,000 miles of transmission lines. In June 2005, PJM became the first central grid operator in the world to handle a load of more than 100,000 megawatts (MW). The company did so smoothly and efficiently, just as it did the following month, when it successfully met a new world-record demand of 134,017 MW during a summer heat wave. That record demand was surpassed three times in 2006, with PJM and its members successfully meeting a record peak demand of 144,796 MW early in August. The company has this year embarked on an ambitious 15-year Regional Transmission Expansion Plan, which will involve $1.3 billion worth of transmission upgrades over the next five years. ENR/McGraw-Hill Construction Energy Construction Project of the YearThe Steam Generating Team (SGT) LLCA joint venture between Washington Group International and AREVA's Framatome, the Steam Generating Team is the first ever winner of this new award, and won it on the basis of a superbly executed project to replace four steam generators at Ameren's Callaway nuclear plant. The project set world records for steam generator replacement and for reactor coolant system "cut-to-fill" duration, completed as it was in sixty-three days and thirteen hours. The team used an innovative approach to the machining of weld preps for the new steam generators and reactor coolant pipe, deploying photogrammetry and laser templating, with the result that shimming and adjusting was kept to a minimum and fit-up was achieved in most cases inside two hours of initial setting of the steam generators. Welding was completed on all eight large bore, heavy walled joints with zero defects. Judges were impressed by SGT's sure-footed handling of project management, which involved a lot of unconventional site preparation and close cooperation with the client. The team built, for example, an equipment unloading facility on the Missouri River, designed an access road over the levee, and installed approximately one mile of haul road and a new bridge to replace an original low water crossing. Also impressive was the first rate safety record on the project. Through innovative shielding and work practise efficiencies, the team achieved total radiation exposure that was 42-person REM below the estimate. Over the total four years of the project, with a team which peaked at over 700 employees, the recordable incident rate was 0.19 and there were zero recordable injuries during the actual replacement outage period. Emission Energy Project of the YearAlgae BioreactorAPS & GreenFuel Technologies CorpUSAGreenFuel Technologies' Emissions-to-Biofuels™ system was the basis of this exciting project, with far-reaching potential, that seems to have demonstrated the viability of converting greenhouse gases to fuel by using emissions to feed fast-growing algae - which are then processed into bio-diesel, ethanol or methane. APS installed GreenFuel's patented reactor at its Red Hawk, Arizona, 1,000 MW power plant, has completed Phase One of the project and is moving to accelerate biofuels production in Phase Two. Phase One involved the evolutionary propagation of algae strains best adapted to consuming CO2 under local water and solar conditions, and proof-of-concept testing with a portable algae reactor. Fitted to flue stacks, the reactor contains algae suspended in fluid, along with nutrients. As the algae photosynthesize, a portion of the reactor's contents is separated off and the algae are de-watered and harvested ready for bio-fuels production using conventional technologies. Judges were impressed both by the wide applicability of the technology and by APS' corporate commitment to the technology, which include plans to harness the technology at a coal-fired plant in the near future. Phase Two of the project involves deploying the bioreactor at a 1-acre site. Phase Three will involve deployment on a 200-plus acre site. GreenFuel Technologies has already won research and consultancy group Frost & Sullivan's "Technology Innovation of the Year" award in 2006 for the bioreactor. Global Energy Project of the YearOrmen Lange gas fieldHydroNorwayThis project was unanimously voted into first place by all ten of Platts Global Energy Awards judges this year - the first time in the history of the awards any entry has received such an endorsement. Development of the Ormen Lange field has been the largest project Hydro has ever undertaken, at a total estimated cost of NOK 66 billion (close to $10 billion). It involves installation of a production unit on the seabed 850-900 meters below sea-level, onshore processing in Norway and the world's longest export pipeline. Gas from Ormen is expected to supply 20% of the UK 's gas needs when the project comes fully onstream in the fall of 2007. The site is so deep that the facilities 24 wellheads and 120km pipeline are having to be built using underwater robot technology and advanced installation techniques. The seabed itself is so mountainous that pipelines have to be routed through peaks that rise up to 60 meters from the ocean floor. Meanwhile temperatures on the seabed of the North Sea are below zero, posing the risk that water in the well-stream could freeze and block pipelines. Hydro is solving the problem with a plan to continuously adding monoethylene glycol anti-freeze at the well-head, with a separation unit to remove the anti-freeze and re-use it on arrival onshore. The world's longest sub-sea pipeline, Langeled, the 1200 km key export route to Britain for gas from the Ormen Lange field, was officially opened October 16 by UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and Norway's Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg. Langeled began delivering gas from the Sleipner field to Britain at the start of October. When complete, Ormen Lange will produce an estimated 70 million cubic meters of gas per day. It has reserves of around 400 billion cubic meters. Hydrocarbon Producer of the YearThe Williams Companies IncUSAThis was a new award this year, combining the former Exploration and Production award for oil and gas companies with the former Coal Company of the Year award. Williams won it out of an impressive field which included players from all areas of hydrocarbon production. The judges were swayed by the way in which the company has turned itself around, upping its gas production eightfold in under ten years and specializing in the development of unconventional reserves. Williams' Exploration and Production business has gone from producing under 100 million cubic feet of gas per day ten years ago to an average of over 780 MM cfe/day at the end of the second quarter of 2006. In 2005, it drilled 1,629 gross wells, with 99% success rate, and as a result replaced 277% of its US production over the course of the year, adding 603 billion cubic feet equivalent in reserves. The company upped its net reserves by 451 Bcfe in 2004 and 408 Bcfe in 2003. Overall production has increased by 25% since January 2005. E&P profits for the group were $587.2 million, up 149% on 2004. In the first six months of 2006, the business has generated segment profits of $267.4 million, again up 20% on first half 2005. E&P revenues in 2005 were $1,27 billion, up 63% on the previous year. Finding costs averaged over the past three years have been $0.92 per Mcfe. Return on capital employed exceeded 16% in 2005 - roughly double 2004's 8% return. Williams is also at the forefront of technical innovation. It partnered in 2005 with Helmerich and Payne on the first-of-kind "FlexRig 4", which uses offshore drilling techniques on land. The rig has a skid system that allows it to drill up to 22 wells from a single location without disassembling and re-assembling the rig. Williams says it has seen a 25% gain in drilling efficiency as a result. It has won an award from the New Mexico Bureau of Land Management for contributions to fish habitat in the San Juan river. Its safety record is admirable: zero lost-time accidents in 2005. Industry Leadership AwardDuke Energy CorporationUSAThis award is given to companies which demonstrate the vision to change the way the industry works - to find new ways of doing things which become the benchmark by which others measure themselves. Duke's contribution in this regard is undoubted and impressive. The judges were extremely impressed by the company's turnaround since 2003 and by the effectiveness of the company's merger in April 2006 with Cinergy, creating one of the largest electric utilities in the United States , with combined 2005 assets of over $70 billion. They were also impressed by Duke's forthright environmental position and its advocacy of an end to "patchwork" environmental policies and the introduction of an economy-wide US climate change policy. After Paul Anderson returned as chairman and CEO in late 2003, the company saw a dramatic improvement in its fortunes. Duke sold or shuttered its non-core assets, including its businesses in Asia and Europe, and its trading business, and went from making a loss of $1.3 billion in 2003 to profits of over $1.8 billion in 2005. It has roughly doubled its stock price in the same period. Duke currently ranks top in the 2006 Fortune 500 gas and electric utilities list. Duke's $9 billion acquisition and merger with Cinergy was effected in just 11 months from initial announcement, and the company is already moving to spin off its natural gas assets to shareholders. Predicted net merger savings of approximately $650 million over the first five years are on track, the company says. Duke's senior managers play a major role in shaping public policy on a wide range of energy-related issues. Chairman Anderson serves on the US President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. Newcomer CEO Jim Rogers, who arrived with the Cinergy merger, is a director of the Alliance to Save Energy, co-chairs the EPA and DOE-sponsored National Action Plan for Energy Efficiency and is chairman of the Edison Electric Institute. Duke is meanwhile taking an environmental lead, investing $2.4 billion through 2008 in pollution control equipment, with the goal of building one of the USA 's cleanest coal fleets by 2010. The company has taken a stand on environmental issues, proposing a mandatory approach to climate change that is economy-wide and market-based, and suggesting implementation of a carbon tax, a "cap and trade" policy or similar mechanisms. "Duke Energy believes that voluntary programs are not enough. Congress needs to establish a national, economy-wide greenhouse gas mandatory program as soon as possible. A sustainable path to reducing US greenhouse gas emissions should become part of a worldwide response to this global issue," the company states in its policy document on the issue. Lifetime Achievement AwardPaul M. AndersonDuke Energy CorporationDuke Energy Chairman and former CEO Paul Anderson's record as a clear-sighted leader, his ethical courage, and his ability to turn challenged businesses into success stories make him a very worth winner of this prestigious award, in the opinion of this year's judges. Over a long career in and around the energy industry, he has famously rescued no fewer than three large businesses from potential failure: Houston's Panhandle Eastern, Australian mining giant BHP, and Duke Energy, this year's winner of the Platts Global Energy Industry Leadership Award. An expert in streamlining operations, Anderson won financial industry admiration for the way he was able to cut Duke Energy's debt by $4.6 billion in the course of a single year, 2004, and made good on a pledge not to cut the company's dividend. Since 2003, indeed, Duke's dividend has twice been raised. Anderson has won admiration, too, for his uncompromising stand on the environment - a stand which led him to call for a serious, country-wide approach to climate change from the US government, and the imposition of a carbon tax, at a time when many in the energy industry were soft-pedaling or playing for time. An advocate of a more intensive nuclear future, Anderson has led calls for "joined-up" carbon management, and called on the energy industry itself to take a lead. "If we (the U.S. energy industry) ignore the issue, we would be the easy target. The worst scenario would be if all 50 states took separate actions and we have to comply with 50 different laws," he told business leaders in Charlotte last year. Anderson has garnered a great deal of respect from his peers in the course of his career. Working under Paul Anderson has been the first step toward being a chief executive officer for many executives. Anadarko's Jim Hackett, Safeco Corp.'s Paula Rosput Reynolds, Dynegy's Bruce Williamson, BHP Billiton's Chip Goodyear and BlueScope Steel's Kirby Adams were all executives under Anderson. In a Houston Chronicle article, Hackett said that Anderson often led by asking questions instead of giving orders. Said Williamson, "I learned more from Paul in three years than I did in the previous fifteen. " Marketing Campaign of the Year"100 Car Racers"S-OilSouth KoreaS-Oil is an oil refiner and gasoline retailer that set out to change the Korean public's perception of its services with a string of high quality, fun, sometimes indeed very funny TV commercials. Its campaign, under the banner "100 Car Racers", was a huge hit, achieving all advertisers' dream of becoming a part of the country's culture. The song from the TV ads has been widely sung, downloaded as a ring-tone, and even parodied by the Korean government for public information advertizing. S-Oil targeted customers aged 25 to 39 likely to be leading market trends - a segment with strong attachment to their cars and likely to be highly receptive to advertizing. In one part of the campaign, the company used Korean celebrities chosen for their appeal to different target genders and age groups; these celebrities were depicted singing the S-Oil song while driving their cars. S-Oil has also launched a series of humorous ads "voiced" by the cars in the ads themselves. The messages: clever drivers buy fuel from S-Oil; and drivers who care for their cars buy from S-Oil. S-Oil's research shows customer "top of mind" awareness jumped by 33% to 49.2%; and brand awareness rose 6% to 15.1%. 54.6% of respondents to a survey said they intended to buy the company's fuel in the future. S-Oil's market share has increased 0.5% to 15.9% of the Korean market in the first half of 2006 compared with the same period last year. Petrochemicals Company of the YearSaudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC)Kingdom of Saudi ArabiaThe Middle East's largest non-oil industrial company, SABIC is based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia . It was founded in 1976, when the Saudi Arabian government decided to use the hydrocarbon gases associated with oil production as raw materials to produce chemicals, polymers and fertilizers. The company was quick to exploit this natural feedstock advantage and has built itself into the world's 10th largest petrochemicals business, with around a 5% global share of petrochemicals market, a much larger share in key products such as ethylene, ethylene glycol, methanol, MTBE and polyethylene. It is the world's third largest polyethylene producer, fourth in polyolefins overall, and sixth in polypropylene. Today it boasts a first class international operation. Since the start of the decade, the company, with its 16,000 employees, has been focused on international expansion and competitiveness. In 2002, SABIC Europe was born, with the acquisition of the petrochemicals business of the Dutch group DSM, and the European arm, with operations in the Netherlands and Germany now sells some 2.6 million tonnes of polymers annually. Following a restructuring in the same year, the group has reorganized itself to compete head to head with the leading petrochemicals companies in the world, following Saudi Arabia 's accession to the World Trade Organization. SABIC will also find itself competing at home against Saudi Aramco, when the latter's Rabigh petrochemical complex comes onstream in 2008. Power Company of the YearEndesaSpainThe award for Power Company of the Year went this year for the second year in a row to a European company, and indeed for the second year to a Spanish company - giant utility Endesa, which impressed the judges with the sheer scale and weight of its business performance, as well as its commitment to sustainability and customer care. The fifth largest company in Europe, Endesa operates in 15 countries around the world, and is the largest electrical utility in Spain , Chile , Argentina , Colombia and Peru . It has 23 million customers and employs more than 27,000 people. 2005 sales were $22.68 billion, with net income at a record of $3.96 billion, up 154.1% on 2004. In the first half of 2006 net income was $2.162 billion, a further 76% increase on the first six months of 2005. The company's share price rose 28.5% in 2005 and rose a further 22.2% January-August 2006. Buoyed by its results, the company has set out highly ambitious financial targets for the 2005-9 period, and is currently aiming for EBITDA of $10.363 billion by 2009, an increase of over $1 billion on its October 2005 estimate. At press time, Endesa was the subject of a $35 billion takeover bid by the German giant E.ON. Endesa is a committed supporter of sustainable development, consistently ranking in the top five companies in the world in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index - an index that takes account of a company's environmental, social and economic impact. It has been a part of the UN Global Compact, a voluntary accountability program, since 2002. In 2005, ENDESA improved its service quality by 23% in Spain and by 8% in Latin America, investing more than US$ 2.2 billion in distribution facilities to boost supply security and meet growing demand. In Spain , it expanded its network of branches and customer care points to reach one for every 24,000 customers; it strengthened its Call Centre, which dealt with more than 11 million calls in 2005; it launched a new version of its on-line sales channel (which currently records some 11 million visits monthly). It scored a remarkable 76% in customer satisfaction in Spain and 70% in Chile . Rising StarHercules Offshore IncUSAThis award is all about new businesses that have found and exploited a niche in the energy industry, that are driving exceptional growth and that will be sustainable in the long run. Given for only the second time in 2006, the award this year went to the impressive Hercules Offshore Inc, a specialist in shallow-water drilling rigs and "liftboat" services to oil and gas explorers. Hercules was founded in 2004 and is a straightforward business, done extremely well. It owns nine jackup rigs that can drill in waters depths of 85 to 250 feet, and - as a specialty - a fleet of 51 liftboats with leg lengths of 105 to 260 feet. There was rarely, of course, a better time to build a business in offshore drilling and supply services, since the entire world is lining up to hire rigs and service vessels at ever increasing prices. The judges commended Hercules for the simplicity and financial viability of its business. The specialism in liftboats - offshore service and supply vessels with legs that lift the hull of the boat out of the sea - may be the key to Hercules' rapid success both in the Gulf of Mexico, its initial operational focus, and elsewhere in the world. It believes it has the world's largest fleet of the boats with legs greater than 100 ft in length, and is expanding its operations in this area into West Africa. And the company has focused on these vessels at a time when many competitors' attention was in other areas. The result has been stellar growth: the company's stock price has risen by over 1000% since July 2004 and the company's market value as a result is up from $65 million to over $1 billion. In 2005 the company generated gross margins of 52%, the second highest in the industry. Return on capital was an industry-leading 19%. It has become a preferred supplier of drilling services to oil major Chevron in the Gulf of Mexico and now derives 30% of its revenue from its Chevron relationship. Revenues in 2005 were around $160 million, with net income of $27 million. For the first six months of 2006, revenues were up to $132 million, with next income of $53 million. Hercules has been smart about reinvesting its profits in growth, having made eleven acquisitions - with a twelfth on the way - in its short life-span. |
