El Paso Electric Third Quarter Earnings Release Date and Conference Call Notification

20 October 2005

El Paso Electric
(NYSE: EE) expects to release third quarter earnings on the morning of
November 3, 2005. El Paso Electric will host a conference call about the
Third Quarter Earnings Release:

Date: November 3, 2005
Time: 2 p.m. MT (4 p.m. ET)
Dial in #: 800-857-5735
Passcode: 2005
Conference Leader: Scott Wilson, EPE Senior Vice President and Chief
Financial Officer

Replay#: 888-566-0509 No passcode required
Replay through November 18, 2005

The conference call can be accessed via El Paso Electric's website and
through the following sites. A replay of the webcast will be available
shortly after the call.

Webcast Address: http://www.epelectric.com
http://www.streetevents.com
http://www.vcall.com

El Paso Electric is a regional electric utility providing generation,
transmission and distribution service to approximately 339,000 retail
customers in a 10,000 square mile area of the Rio Grande valley in west Texas
and southern New Mexico. EE has a net installed generating capacity of
approximately 1,500 MW. EPE's common stock trades on the New York Stock
Exchange under the symbol EE.

Safe Harbor
This news release includes statements that may constitute forward-looking
statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private
Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. This information may involve risks
and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from
such forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause or contribute to
such differences include, but are not limited to: (i) increased prices for
fuel and purchased power and the possibility that regulators may not permit EE
to pass through all such increased costs to customers; (ii) determinations by
regulators that may adversely affect EE's ability to recover previously
incurred fuel costs in rates; (iii) fluctuations in wholesale margins due to
uncertainty in the wholesale power market; (iv) unanticipated increased costs
associated with scheduled and unscheduled outages; (v) the cost of replacing
steam generators for Palo Verde Units 1 and 3 and other costs at Palo Verde;
(vi) the costs of legal defense and possible judgments which may accrue as the
result of ongoing litigation arising out of the FERC investigation or any
other regulatory proceeding; (vii) deregulation of the electric utility
industry and (viii) other factors detailed by EE in its public filings with
the Securities and Exchange Commission. EE's filings are available from the
Securities and Exchange Commission or may be obtained through EE's website,
http://www.epelectric.com . Any such forward-looking statement is qualified by
reference to these risks and factors. EE cautions that these risks and factors
are not exclusive. EE does not undertake to update any forward-looking
statement that may be made from time to time by or on behalf of EE except as
required by law.