Providing a microcosm of the regained luster in some energy utility stocks, California’s three major utilities are all ending 2003 at or near 52-week highs in their stock prices. That includes two of the nation’s largest utilities that have been in or near bankruptcy for the last two years following the 2000-2001 western energy crisis.

The surge in stocks generally, coupled with favorable state regulatory rulings in recent weeks, have pushed both Pacific Gas and Electric Co. and Southern California Edison Co. to near the stock prices they had prior to the wholesale energy market upheavals of late 2000 and the first half of 2001. After nearly three years in Chapter 11 bankruptcy, PG&E’s utility appears to have the state regulatory and federal court approvals needed to emerge in the first quarter of 2004 as an investment-grade company with its creditors made whole.

San Diego-based Sempra Energy, which was spared the financial hardships of the two other California utilities, has steadily built its earnings (and stock price) through successful utility and merchant energy businesses. Sempra stock has been trading at or near 52-week highs for much of the fourth quarter.

On Tuesday, Sempra closed at $30.06, unchanged. Its 52-week high was reached earlier in the fourth quarter at $30.90. PG&E Corp. closed at a new 52-week high of $27.92; and Edison also set a new 52-week milestone of $22/share.

PG&E’s utility earlier this month won okays from the California Public Utilities Commission and the federal bankruptcy court in San Francisco for its modified plan to structure its recovery, including the payment of $12 billion to creditors. Edison also has received key CPUC approvals for dividend restorations, power plant construction and purchased power contracts, and its credit ratings were recently hiked to investment-grade level.

With its credit ratings never pushed below investment grade, Sempra Energy now is poised to build two liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving terminals in North Baja, Mexico, and on the Gulf Coast of Louisiana, along with expanding its merchant energy and trading operations.

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