ST. LOUIS, Aug. 22 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- ESCO Technologies Inc. today provided an update on a previously discussed advanced metering opportunity with a customer located in the southern United States. During the Company's investor conference call on August 8, 2006, Management discussed several advanced metering opportunities in which the Company is participating and described one particular latter-stage pilot as having a near-term project approval expectation.
Based on ongoing discussions with the customer of this latter-stage pilot, project approval was expected to be received prior to September 30, 2006 and deployment was expected to begin in the second half of fiscal 2007. The customer informed Management that they would be delaying their decision to move forward with the project for at least a year. The customer indicated that the TWACS(R) system met their core requirements and that they were continuing their evaluation.
Vic Richey, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, commented, "While we are disappointed that this project has been delayed, we remain encouraged that our advanced metering system performed well for this customer over an extended period of time and was supportive of a positive business case. We will continue to support this customer on this project.
"Overall, we continue to be encouraged by the number of outstanding opportunities being addressed within the advanced metering market."
ESCO, headquartered in St. Louis, is a proven supplier of special purpose communications systems for electric, gas and water utilities, including hardware and software to support advanced metering applications. In addition, the Company provides engineered filtration products to the transportation, health care and process markets worldwide and is the industry leader in RF shielding and EMC test products. Further information regarding ESCO and its subsidiaries is available on the Company's web site, http://www.escotechnologies.com/ .
