Manitoba Hydro Receives 2006 Project of the Year Award for webTrader Initiative
March 16, 2006

On Tuesday, March 15, 2006, Manitoba Hydro's ("MH") webTrader Enterprise Project was named the 2006 Project of the Year by the Manitoba Chapter of the Project Management Institute ("PMI"). The award honors made-in-Manitoba projects that achieve superior performance and use progressive project management practices to achieve results. PMI has over 200,000 certified professionals representing 125 countries all around the globe. With this award, this project is now a candidate for the national and international competitions that will occur in the coming months.

Minneapolis based Open Access Technology International, Inc. ("OATI") supplied this system and worked with Manitoba Hydro to implement and deploy its webTrader Enterprise system.

The goal of the webTrader Enterprise Project was to meet the business requirements of the Power Sales & Operations and Gas Supply divisions for a world class energy trading, scheduling, and settlement system. On the electricity side of the business, a replacement for the existing transaction scheduling system was required to allow Manitoba Hydro to participate in the Midwest Independent Transmission System Operator ("Midwest ISO") Day 2 Markets. On the natural gas side, webTrader implementation provided a fully integrated application to replace the spreadsheets and databases that formerly were being used to track gas transactions and to invoice customers.

Various divisions of MH (namely Power Sales & Operations and Gas Supply) and OATI worked together to make this dream a reality. Together, these parties contributed in reaching major milestones on time and within budget. MH considers OATI as a critical project partner; the strategic relationship between MH and OATI will make the webTrader Enterprise solution bigger and better than it is today.

The webTrader Power project went live on December 1, 2004, and the webTrader Gas project went live May 1, 2005. "It was certainly a challenging journey for all members of the team and those involved in this dynamic project," said John Auriti (Manager, Market Process and Technology), who headed up the webTrader Power team. "And, it is a great honor to receive this recognition from the PMI".

Congratulations to all the staff involved in the webTrader Enterprise Project, including:

Mack Kast (Division Manager Gas Supply), Lori Stewart (Manager, Gas Supply Pricing and administration), Judy Robson, Brent Sanderson, and Brenda Urbanowich (all Gas Supply Pricing and Administration), Howard Stephens (Manager, Gas Supply, Transport, and Storage), Brent Moen, Bob Wiebe, Terry Polanski, Dana Feal, and Karen Willms (all Gas Supply, Transport, and Storage), David Cormie (Division Manager, Power Sales and Operations), John Auriti, Edward Huzarewich, Robert Lacroix, and Dave Ewacha (all Market Process and Technology), Denise Mortimer (Manager, Power Trading), Cory Rach, Cheryl Kumhyr, Kelly Bertholet, and Chris Guttormson (all Power Trading), Connie Gamble (Manager, Business Services), Nelda Didychuk, Jana Baron, and Leona Sawatzky (all Business Services), Joanne Flynn (Manager, Export Power Marketing), Kelly Hunter, Dan Prowse, Dwight Evans, Natalie Sever, and Lam Chung (all Export Power Marketing), Halina Zbigniewicz (Manager, Water Resource Development and Engineering), Terry Miles Manager, Hydraulic Operations), John Crawford (Hydraulic Operations), Inez Calahan and Barb Hinds (both Accounting Research and Compliance), Lionel Ferre, Kristine Pabianek, and Charles Ducharme (all Power Supply Applications), Larry Muldrew (System Support), Liisa Maki and Don Bjornson (both Law), Leo Wong (Intellectual Property), and Lori Kazun (Corporate Risk Management).