News Release

Nov. 7, 2002

PNM Electric Customers Have Nation's
Most Reliable Service, Industry Report Says

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NEWS MEDIA CONTACT Susan Sponar Telephone: (505) 241-2768

Albuquerque: PNM's electric customers around the state have the nation's most reliable service, according to a report by the Edison Electric Institute (EEI). The report, released to utilities in mid-October, shows that PNM has the best record for keeping the lights on among a group of 36 utilities that provided data to the survey on the duration of system interruptions.

The survey, created by the utility trade group to assist utilities in improving reliability of the electric system, shows that PNM customers on average spent just 64.87 minutes in the dark during all of 2001 out of a total of 525,600 minutes per year. This compares with a national average of 209.4 minutes without power in 2001, more than three times PNM's average.

"Last year, customers' lights were on 99.99 percent of the time," said John Myers, vice president of PNM's construction and reliability. "We've met this target in years past, too, but this is the first year that PNM topped the charts.

"PNM has increased its investment in new facilities, improved technology and purchased better equipment – investments that pay off for customers in terms of shorter outages," Myers said. "It's part of a new way of doing our work that is dramatically increasing productivity while improving customer satisfaction. It allows our dedicated employees to really do their best for customers, consistently, every day on the job."

EEI's 2001 Reliability Report provides five different statistics that track interruptions to electric customers' service. Forty-five utilities from 29 states participated in the survey.

PNM is the principal subsidiary of PNM Resources, an energy holding company based in Albuquerque. PNM provides natural gas service to 441,000 gas customers and electric utility service to 378,000 customers in New Mexico. The company also sells power on the wholesale market in the Western U.S. PNM Resources stock is traded primarily on the NYSE under the symbol PNM.