By Tom Ryan, Kansas City Star Reader Advisory Panel

There are times when we read the national news and wonder how it affects us in the Kansas City area. The transcript of today's Great Plains Energy (KCPL) Q3 call (read here) is good local analysis.

There’s a lot to this, but it’s a read worth your time.

Summary:
- $35million less revenue than this time last year
- economy is “leveling off” in our area based upon the indicator of increased building permits
- taking diligent measures to decrease costs (overhead)
- Latan 2 plant construction online…completion @ Jan 2010
- Wolf Creek, down in Aug, to come back online in Nov 09

“As we indicated in our press release, we're tightening our 2009 range of $1.10 to $1.40 per share to $1.10 to $1.18 per share. And doing so, we've evaluated potential impacts for the balance of the year from a number of factors including first, the economy and its influence on weather normalized retail sales. Second, natural gas prices and the impact on wholesale sales, wholesale volume and purchase power expense, and third, our continued focus on tightly managing OEM expense and capturing synergies.”

Terry Bassham
EVP, Finance & Strategic Development and CFO

Great Plains Energy Inc.(GXP)