As it kicked off the first business day of the new year announcing developments in its liquefied natural gas (LNG) plans, San Diego-based Sempra Energy put in place its previously announced realignment of re-named companies operating in various parts of the energy industry separate from its two major California-based utilities. Part of the realignment was consolidating all LNG projects under a re-named “Sempra LNG” unit.

In general, Sempra reiterated in an announcement of the changes that it was re-naming a number of its units, effective Jan. 1, to “more closely describe their primary activities.”

The old Sempra Energy International is now Sempra Pipelines and Storage, which will also report operational results from Sempra’s South American utility operations, which it announced last year eventually will be sold over the next year or two. Sempra Energy Global, the holding company for the company’s non-California regulated activities, is now simply called “Sempra Global.”

Sempra Energy Trading was re-named Sempra Commodities, and Sempra Energy Resources is now Sempra Generation — in both cases the new names more directly relate to what those business units do, according to Sempra. Finally, like several of the other re-namings, Sempra Energy Financial has dropped “Energy” from its title and is now called Sempra Financial.

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