Allegro Wins Energy Software Contract With The Lower Colorado River Authority

Business Wire, March 29, 2005

DALLAS -- Allegro Development today announced completion of a contract for its industry-leading fuels and energy risk management software with the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA), headquartered in Austin, Texas. LCRA is a nonprofit conservation and reclamation district created by the State of Texas. It supplies wholesale electricity to more than 40 retail utilities, including cities and electric cooperatives that serve more than 1 million people in 53 Texas counties and operates more than 3,300 miles of transmission lines statewide, manages water supplies and floods in the lower Colorado River basin, develops water and wastewater utilities, provides public parks, and supports community and economic development. Allegro v.7 software was selected after a comprehensive procurement process to provide new methods for managing fuels trading, reporting and settlement activities performed by LCRA staff members.

"The goal of this project was to find a long-term strategic partner with a proven track record and industry-specific expertise," stated Jim Gleitman, Asset Manager, LCRA. "Allegro's component architecture and advanced functionality will allow LCRA to utilize only those modules needed to address today's requirements in the areas of energy risk management, trading and distribution, and is highly scalable to support our future growth objectives."

Since January 2002 with the opening of the deregulated Texas retail electric market, the Fuels & Energy Risk Management, Settlement & Billing, and Accounting staff members of LCRA have been using "first generation" software to manage and capture energy trades. The objective of the procurement process was to identify and obtain a new solution based on a technology foundation that is flexible and highly scalable to provide:

--more efficient and effective methods of capturing financial, gas, coal, and electricity deals, contracts, scheduling of energy resources, management of counterparties, comprehensive financial reporting, Value at Risk (VaR) calculations and risk analyses;

--greater flexibility to respond nimbly to and comply with changing government regulations;

--real time, accurate information for more effective decision support;

--more accurate valuation of assets, transactions, and market conditions; and

--greater business process automation and faster cycles needed to lower costs for planning, optimization and execution of business strategies.

Allegro software supports multiple commodities, multiple units of measurement and multiple time periods. As a result, Allegro can supply an entire energy software solution ranging from contract management, through trading, position keeping and scheduling, to settlement and invoicing.

About Allegro

Allegro designs and delivers energy trading, transport and risk management software that gives traders, risk managers, and other decision-makers fully scalable, flexible solutions that are easy to integrate, deploy and modify--enabling companies throughout the energy industry to gain compelling advantages while keeping pace with volatile markets and emerging strategies. Allegro advantages include more accurate understandings of market dynamics and risk, unprecedented efficiencies and collaboration among teams across the enterprise, full integration of physical product management and financial transactions, and more. Now in its seventh generation over 20 years, leading energy companies worldwide rely on Allegro.

For more information, visit: www.allegrodevelopment.com.