Chapter

As part of its ongoing Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceeding, the court approved Pacific Gas and Electric paying $281 million of 6.25% first mortgage refunding bonds that mature Aug. 1. The PG&E Corp. utility will pay the bondholders from its current available cash, which totaled $3.49 billion on May 31, 2003.

With its principal subsidiary still enmeshed in Chapter 11 bankruptcy, San Francisco-based PG&E Corp. last week reported a complicated stream of earnings that included several arcane designations such as “headroom,” reversal of past pre-bankruptcy charges and various energy crisis/bankruptcy charges. The net effect of all the accounting machinations is $631 million, or $1.71/share, of earnings for the first quarter, compared to a $951 million loss, or negative 2.62/share for the same period last year.

A year past the initial stigma of its utility affiliate’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy, PG&E National Energy Group (NEG) is focused on streamlining its portfolio of new energy projects and hanging on to its investment-grade credit ratings, a senior PG&E executive said last week in a conference call with the financial community. On an operating basis both the NEG nonutility businesses and Pacific Gas and Electric Co. utility showed lower earnings than the same period in 2001.

Even under the protection of Chapter 11 federal bankruptcy proceedings, April is still a month for shelling out tax payments. Pacific Gas and Electric Co. paid $67.8 million last Wednesday in property tax payments to the 49 counties in which it operates in the northern half of California. Combined with an additional $145 million the utility will pay in local franchise fees during the month, the company plans to distribute $212 million to California cities and counties by the end of April. The PG&E utility’s CEO Gordon Smith emphasized that the tax payments are part of the company’s role in helping “fund vital public services,” undoubtedly a fact the companies will stress in promoting their proposed reorganization of the utility in bankruptcy court, spinning off all the nondistribution operations. State officials are strongly opposing this, offering their alternative plan that would keep the utility intact. The major property tax payment by the utility was $11.6 million to San Luis Obispo County, along the central California coast where the PG&E Diablo Canyon Nuclear Generating Plant is located. That is more than double the next largest county payment, which was $5.3 million to Alameda County in the East San Francisco Bay..

California’s Attorney General last Wednesday attempted to open another chapter in the state’s wide-ranging attempts to secure billions of dollars of refunds for the wholesale power it and the state’s major utilities purchased in 2000-2001, filing a new request with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for refunding alleged overcharges paid by San Diego consumers. An ongoing FERC refund investigation covering the entire western power markets does not cover the summer period in question because of what the federal agency claims are legal restrictions preventing it from doing so.

Despite taking its massive utility into Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings last year, PG&E Corp. reported Wednesday it handed out $4.68 million in bonuses to 11 top corporate and utility senior executives, along with $13.5 million in restricted stock, as rewards for performances resulting in $1.1 billion in profits last year. The disclosure was part of a filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission, prompting strong criticism from consumer groups.

Despite taking its massive utility into Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings last year, PG&E Corp. reported Wednesday it handed out $4.68 million in bonuses to 11 top corporate and utility senior executives, along with $13.5 million in restricted stock, as rewards for performances resulting in $1.1 billion in profits last year. The disclosure was part of a filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission, prompting strong criticism from consumer groups.

What a difference a year makes for Pacific Gas and Electric Co., still working its way through Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings, but facing kinder, gentler wholesale gas and electricity prices. As a result, the San Francisco-based utility began the new year with a retail natural gas price of 39 cents/therm, a 72% drop in commodity costs, noting that for the first time in many months, “prices are beginning to stabilize and are more reflective of natural gas costs during the past five years.”

In yet another chapter in the unfolding saga of Enron Corp., Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) has called on the Department of Transportation’s Office of Pipeline Safety (OPS) to look into whether the company’s questionable practices extended to cutting corners on the safety and security of its pipeline operations.