CALENERGY ANNOUNCES EXPIRATION OF HART-SCOTT-RODINO ANTITRUST WAITING PERIOD FOR NYSEG TENDER OFFER CALENERGY CALLS UPON NYSEG BOARD TO HEED SHAREHOLDERS' REQUEST FOR DISCUSSIONS NEW YORK, Aug. 4 /PRNewswire-AsiaNet/ -- CalEnergy Company, Inc. ("CalEnergy") (NYSE, PSE, LSE: CE) today announced, with respect to its subsidiary's $24.50 per share cash tender offer for 6,540,670 shares of the common stock of New York State Electric & Gas Corporation (NYSEG) (NYSE: NGE), that the antitrust waiting period under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvement Act of 1976 expired as of 12:00 midnight, New York City time, August 1, 1997. The tender offer is scheduled to expire at 12:00 midnight, New York City time, on August 14, 1997, unless the offer is extended. David L. Sokol, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of CalEnergy, stated, "We are pleased that the Hart-Scott-Rodino waiting period has expired which permits our tender offer to proceed without further federal antitrust review." Mr. Sokol further stated, "We are also pleased by the recent public statements made by certain of the largest NYSEG shareholders encouraging the NYSEG board to commence merger discussions with CalEnergy. In this regard, we reiterate our willingness to immediately commence merger negotiations with NYSEG." CalEnergy, which manages and owns interests in over 5,000 net MW of power generation facilities in operation, construction and development worldwide, currently operates 19 generating facilities and also supplies and distributes electricity to 1.5 million customers. CONTACT: Patti J. McAtee, Director, Corporate Communications, of CalEnergy Company, 402-341-4500; or Joele Frank of Abernathy MacGregor Group, 212-371-5999.