Angeles

With extremely high winds forecast to return to Northern California by Tuesday, wildfire prevention methods by Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) that cut power to more than two million people and thousands of homes and businesses are likely to stay in place for up to five days.

After almost two years out of service, Southern California Gas Co. (SoCalGas) plans to restart Line 235, a 30-inch diameter pipeline that carries natural gas from the Arizona border through the high desert and into the Los Angeles Basin.

California fire and utility officials on Tuesday were investigating a natural gas explosion at a home in Murrieta, about 80 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles that apparently was sparked by a contractor damaging a gas service line.

Denver-based Sentinel Peak Resources (SPR) has notified City of Los Angeles officials that it intends to close down and transform an oil and gas drilling site in a working class neighborhood near the University of Southern California (USC) campus.

Inadequate natural gas supplies for electricity generation in Southern California again will hover over the region this summer and cast doubts about next winter, according to an assessment unveiled by the California Energy Commission (CEC).

Powerful Santa Ana winds hit Los Angeles Monday overnight, fanning a wildfire in the foothills 20 miles northwest of downtown and leaving thousands of electrical customers without power. Initial reports from Southern California Gas Co. (SoCalGas) indicated no major outages on the area system.

Opportunities for natural gas vehicles (NGV) could emerge from local and state initiatives unveiled in California this week where the political leadership is locked in an aggressive response to climate change.

An idle and already troubled urban oil drilling site in the shadow of downtown Los Angeles on Wednesday was hit with a permanent injunction by a California Superior Court judge that will keep it shut down until the operator, Allenco Energy Co., installs a health and safety monitoring system at the two-acre site.

While leadership has shifted to the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) in overseeing an independent investigation of the root causes in the four-month-old natural gas storage well leak in Southern California, the future of the 86 Bcf, 3,600-acre underground storage field is shrouded in doubt and dissention.