Energy trading boosts Williams profit

Allen Baker

With a big boost from its energy trading arm, Williams Cos. Inc showed net income of $221.3 million for the third quarter, up 83 percent from the $121.1 million the company earned in the same quarter last year. More than half of the increase was a result of losses in the 2000 quarter on Williams’ former communications division, which was spun off to shareholders.

Williams made $339.5 million in the second quarter of this year.

The company’s energy services division, which includes the North Pole refinery and other Alaska operations, produced operating income of $216 million, up from $168 million a year earlier.

But the big star was the company’s energy marketing and trading segment, which brought in $381 million, more than double the $147 million that operation produced a year earlier.

Gas pipelines brought in only $138 million, down from $153 million in the prior quarter. But the company said virtually all of that difference was a result of matching employee contributions to local United Way charities.

That match came in the fourth quarter last year.

Revenues for the Tulsa-based company reached $2.81 billion, up 21 percent from the $2.33 billion the company collected a year earlier.

The North Pole refinery processed 223,700 barrels of crude daily during the quarter, up from 204,600 in the 2000 quarter and 195,800 in the second quarter of this year.