NW Bancorp sees increased earnings

Northwest Bancorporation Inc. reported 2004 earnings of $1.9 million, a 12.5 percent increase from 2003.

The firm is the parent company of Inland Northwest Bank.

The improved results were due to better credit quality and expense control, according to chief executive officer Randall Fewell.

In a press release, Fewell said the bank continues to have a strong mortgage business but that 2004 marked a move toward financing of new home sales and residential buildings rather that the refinancing business that peaked in 2002 and 2003.

The company, based in Spokane, has total assets of $220.5 million.

Group challenges Kensington mine plan

Juneau, Alaska An environmental group has filed an appeal over Coeur d’Alene Mines Corp.’s plans to build the Kensington gold mine in Alaska.

The Southeast Alaska Conservation Council filed the appeal Tuesday. The group is challenging a “record of decision” issued by the Tongass National Forest on the mine’s environmental impact statement. The record of decision outlines how the Kensington mine would operate.

The mine site lies 45 air miles north of Juneau. Coeur plans to transport workers to the mine by a high-speed ferry across Berners Bay, a rich marine ecosystem.

“Development of this mine as proposed is the first step in the industrialization of the Berners Bay ecosystem,” the appeal said.

In December, the National Marine Fisheries Service said the ferry service, dock construction and transportation of fuel and supplies to the mine is likely to affect populations of sea lions and humpback whales. NMFS is preparing a biological opinion on the matter.

The Southeast Alaska Conservation Council believes that the Forest Service should have waited for NMFS’s opinion before issuing the record of decision, said Kat Hall, the group’s mining coordinator.

The Kensington mine would produce about 100,000 ounces of gold annually. It would employ about 225 people over a 10- to 15-year mine life.

PGE’s profits could exceed allowed return

Portland A confidential document leaked to a Portland weekly newspaper suggests that Enron subsidiary Portland General Electric earned far more than the maximum profit set by state regulators in the 1990s.

The analysis by Texas Pacific Group, obtained by Willamette Week, showed that PGE earned nearly a quarter billion dollars more than its maximum rate of return allowed by the Oregon Public Utility Commission for the nine years from 1992 to 2000.

Texas Pacific, along with PGE and the commission, countered that the rate is close to the allowed rate if a longer period is used for comparison.

“Over the longer term, we were right at the allowed rate,” said Jim Piro, PGE chief financial officer.

The utility earned more in the 1990s partly because natural gas prices nosedived, cutting the cost of power production, and the economy was booming, Piro said.

He estimated that PGE earned about $126 million more than the allowed rate – about half the Texas Pacific estimate.

But Piro said those higher earnings for the ‘90s were offset by lower earnings in the late 1980s, and followed in 2001 by a steep and sudden decline in profits caused by the Western energy crisis and the national recession that opened the decade and extended well into 2003.