Angeles

Sempra Energy’s Los Angeles-based Southern California Gas Co. utility reported Thursday that it set a new summer demand record of 3.72 Bcf/d on July 24 when electric utilities throughout the state set all-time peak demand records. Gas demand from power generation was responsible for more than half the load, the company reported. Natural gas is the primary fuel for electric generation plants in the state, and particularly in the SoCalGas territory.

Sempra Energy’s Los Angeles-based Southern California Gas Co. utility reported Thursday that it set a record summer day sendout of 3.72 Bcf last July 24 when electric utilities throughout the state set all-time peak demand records. Natural gas is the primary fuel for electric generation plants in the state, and particularly in the SoCalGas territory.

Although wholesale prices have moderated somewhat in recent months, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) Wednesday gained approval from the city council to raise its power rates to cover higher natural gas costs. The action authorizes surcharges for the city-run utility, the nation’s largest municipal utility, whose base electric rates have been frozen for almost a decade.

Pittsburgh-based independent Linn Energy LLC said it paid Blacksand Energy LLC $291 million for about 31.3 million boe of proved oil reserves located in the Los Angeles Basin and paid Kaiser-Francis Oil Co. $125 million for 55 Bcfe of proved Midcontinent gas reserves. The Blacksand assets located in the Brea Olinda Field in Orange County, CA, include 270 producing wells and are 90% crude oil. The Kaiser assets, located in North Central Oklahoma, include 411 producing wells and are 84% natural gas. The purchases will substantially diversify the company’s assets, which currently are located primarily in the Appalachian Basin and are 99% natural gas. Linn said it expects to increase it annual cash distribution to $1.72/unit beginning in the third fiscal quarter and plans to recommend another distribution increase in the fourth quarter.

Having authorized the raw numbers and programs for its fiscal 2006-07 multi-billion-dollar budget, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) oversight board Tuesday directed the city-run utility’s management to pursue 10-year contracts in its natural gas hedging strategy and calculate proposed electric fuel cost and renewable energy rate adjustments by the board’s July 18 meeting.

Although painfully short on details, there was an official announcement Wednesday by Australian energy giant Woodside Energy Ltd.’s U.S. unit in Los Angeles regarding its plans to apply to federal, state and local agencies to develop a proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) import project at an unspecified site along California’s coast.

Faced with a fast growing residential/commercial area in the greater high desert Yucca Valley area about 100 miles east of Los Angeles, Sempra Energy’s Southern California Gas Co. is planning to increase its transmission pipeline capacity into the relatively remote area north of Palm Springs, a company official verified Tuesday. Large loads at the Twentynine Palms Marine Corps Base to the east and growing residential and commercial uses of gas in Yucca Valley prompted the plans.

Opponents of a massive coastal development on a previously undeveloped part of seaside Los Angeles have reignited the long-standing debate about the safety and environmental suitability of a major new suburban development near a 60-year-old underground natural gas storage facility operated by Sempra Energy’s Southern California Gas Co. utility subsidiary.

Opponents of a massive coastal development on a previously undeveloped part of seaside Los Angeles have reignited the long-standing debate about the safety and environmental suitability of a major new suburban development near a 60-year-old underground natural gas storage facility operated by Sempra Energy’s Southern California Gas Co. utility subsidiary.