BUSINESS
By JAY HANCOCK | February 21, 2009
How hard is it to be fired from the top reaches of corporate America? Consider the strange case of Mayo A. Shattuck III, chairman and chief executive of Baltimore-based Constellation Energy. Commodity bets with borrowed money and market turmoil nearly pushed Constellation into bankruptcy in September. The company's stock has fallen 75 percent since the beginning of 2008. Constellation shares have delivered about the same return as a broad basket of U.S. electricity and utility stocks since Shattuck took over in late 2001.
BUSINESS
By Hanah Cho | February 4, 2009
Constellation Energy Group announced late yesterday that it sold a big piece of its commodities trading operations, once the biggest source of its growth but more recently the source of financial troubles that forced it to find a merger partner. Macquarie Group of Australia agreed yesterday to buy Constellation's natural gas unit, based in Houston, for an undisclosed price, and supply gas to Constellation NewEnergy Gas, the company's retail division. Yesterday's transaction is the Baltimore company's latest move to reduce risk and the large collateral requirements needed to run trading operations.
BUSINESS
By Paul Adams | December 15, 2007
Constellation Energy Group said yesterday that it has contracted to buy all of the power from a new gas-fired generator being built in York County, Pa., to help alleviate a looming energy shortage in the Mid-Atlantic power grid. The project being built by Conectiv Energy will improve overall reliability of the grid, but energy experts said it would do little to lower prices or solve a projected energy shortfall for Baltimore Gas and Electric customers in Central Maryland. A shortage of high-capacity power lines will prevent the area from tapping into the new power source for years to come.
NEWS
December 27, 2007
Robert Jemellaro, a retired Constellation Energy human resources director, died Friday at the Brighton Gardens nursing home of a heart attack. The Perry Hall resident was 67. Born in Baltimore and raised in Highlandtown, Mr. Jemellaro was a 1958 graduate of Patterson Park High School and was student body president. He attended the University of Baltimore and the Maryland Institute College of Art. He served in the Army. He joined Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. on a work-study program. He initially worked in customer service and remained with the company, eventually becoming director of human resources with Constellation, the parent of BGE. He retired in 1998.
BUSINESS
By Jay Hancock | July 22, 2007
Exactly how much profit is Constellation Energy making on the generation plants it got from Baltimore Gas and Electric seven years ago in the move to deregulate electricity? How much lower would electricity rates be if the plants were still owned by BGE and regulated by the state instead of being able to charge what the market bears? What are those plants worth, anyway, now that electricity prices have zoomed up? We're about to find out. The Public Service Commission and its chairman, Steven B. Larsen, are days away from hiring experts to analyze Maryland's deregulated system in the greatest detail ever.
NEWS
By Phillip McGowan | September 15, 2007
Under threat of a lawsuit from state regulators, Constellation Energy Corp. said yesterday that it will stop dumping fly ash from coal at a mine in Anne Arundel County while it negotiates and carries out a plan to clean up neighbors' contaminated drinking water. By Monday, Constellation will no longer drop off truckloads of fly ash, a byproduct of its coal-fired plants, at an 80-acre site in Gambrills owned by BBSS Inc., said Rob Gould, a Constellation spokesman, but he declined to say where it would deposit the debris instead.
BUSINESS
By Jay Hancock | April 18, 2007
The rigging of the electricity marketplace to enrich power companies and executives looks even worse than we thought. Just as Maryland was getting shocked by higher kilowatt prices, grid managers have allowed extra profit for generation outfits such as Constellation Energy, parent of Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. The bonus, whose magnitude was revealed Friday, might eventually cost the typical BGE household $10 a month or more and add hundreds of...
BUSINESS
By Paul Adams | November 16, 2007
Baltimore-based Constellation Energy Group's nuclear development arm said yesterday that it has asked state regulators for a permit to build a third reactor at Calvert Cliffs in Lusby, though the company maintains it has not yet decided to go ahead with the project. UniStar Nuclear Energy, a joint venture between Constellation and Electricite de France SA, applied to the Maryland Public Service Commission for what's called a certificate of public convenience and necessity. The PSC will coordinate a multiagency review of the project's potential impact on the environment and state infrastructure, among other things.
NEWS
By Phillip McGowan | October 3, 2007
One day after state officials meted out punishment to a coal-ash disposal site in Gambrills, Anne Arundel County Executive John R. Leopold signed into law yesterday emergency legislation that bans the opening of fly-ash dumps for a year. Although the bill does not address Constellation Energy's 12-year use of a disposal site operated by BBSS Inc., Leopold said the one-year deadline provides "important leverage" over the Maryland Department of the Environment as the agency looks to institute stronger regulations over how coal-fired power plants dispose of waste ash. "The council responded to the voice of the people," said Leopold, who introduced the bill after a county investigation in August revealed cancer-causing metals in 23 private wells near the 80-acre BBSS property.
BUSINESS
By Paul Adams | July 21, 2007
Constellation Energy Group said yesterday that it is teaming with Electricite de France SA, the world's largest operator of nuclear power plants, to develop and invest in a fleet of new nuclear reactors that if licensed would be among the first new ones in the U.S. in a generation. The stated-controlled French company will invest $625 million in a joint venture with Constellation called UniStar Nuclear Energy LLC. UniStar plans to license and build reactors based on a French design being adapted for the United States.