U.S. Power Trading Ceases After Attacks

Electricity traders in Houston; Minneapolis; Omaha, Neb.; and Long Beach, Calif., said the markets were shutting or trading at extremely low volumes.

"Trading is pretty much shut down now," said Rick Sornberger, a trader at MPEX in Minneapolis, a division of Minnesota Power.

"Everybody in the trading business knows somebody who works in the World Trade Center," said an electricity dealer who works in Long Beach, Calif., for Mieko, a unit of Japan's Marubeni Corp.

"Most of the trades occurred before the news from New York," he said.

An Enron power trader in Houston said she and colleagues were leaving their building but it was not an evacuation.

"Everybody shut down ... no one is working," said a power trader for Omaha Public Power District in Omaha, Neb.