PARIS (Standard&Poor's) March 5, 2002--Standard&Poor's said today that it had revised its outlook on Spanish utility Gas Natural SDG, S.A. to negative from stable, reflecting yesterday's downgrade of the company's parent Repsol-YPF S.A.--whose long-term corporate credit rating was lowered to triple-'B' from triple-'B'-plus--with the maintenance of a negative outlook. The single-'A'-plus long-term and A-1 short-term corporate credit ratings on Gas Natural remain unchanged. "The negative outlook does not reflect a change in Gas Natural's own credit quality, with its 2001 results being largely in line with expectations, but reflects heightened interference risk through asset transfers, upstreaming of cash, and so on by its parent, Repsol-YPF, which holds 47% of shares," said Standard&Poor's credit analyst
