PG&E’s organizational shuffling is not over yet. A weekafter announcing plans to sell its entire energy services divisionand a month after selling its unprofitable Texas gas transmissionassets to El Paso, PG&E Corp. has told all of its Houston-basedgas traders to pack their bags and prepare for a move to Bethesda,MD.

“This isn’t just a trading consolidation,” said spokeswomanDebbie Witmer. “It’s a consolidation of all our National EnergyGroup businesses: gas transmission, generating and trading.” Themass exodus is expected to be complete by Labor Day.

Bethesda had been the location of PG&E’s power operations.The new move is part of an effort to gain trading efficiencies bybringing regional gas and power operations closer together, saidWitmer. “We’ve always had most of our power traders in Bethesdawith just a handful here in Houston. Now the entire gas tradingoperation will be heading to Bethesda. We expect that not everyonewill go. But we’re estimating that the total number moving will beabout 100 [out of a total of 200 in Houston],” she said.

“It’s a realization that in a convergence market were are goingto be much better positioned with our trading floors combined withgas and power traders working together. Part of the reorganizationis structuring it by region, and we think that having peopleliterally sitting across from each other will give us a bettercompetitive position.”

Why move to Bethesda, which is near the nation’s capitol, asopposed to Houston, the energy trading capital of the world? “Withthe sale of the gas transmission assets to El Paso, there werefewer people to move that way than if we had taken the 400 pluspeople in Bethesda and moved them to Houston,” she said.

Rocco Canonica

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