Francisco

San Francisco-based PG&E Corp. reiterated it expected lenders to its merchant energy unit will continue to forbear the continuing defaults by its multi-billion-dollar nonutility businesses, but if push comes to shove, a bankruptcy filing or charges against last quarter or 2003 earnings eventually could be needed, the energy holding company said in a filing Monday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

San Francisco-based PG&E Corp. tossed aside the current financial struggles of both its regulated and merchant lines of business , announcing Thursday that it is a charter member of a new private-sector nonprofit, the California Climate Action Registry, a state-created voluntary registry for greenhouse gas emissions. All of PG&E’s businesses will report their greenhouse gas emissions associated with the generation, transmission, distribution and storage of natural gas and electricity in California.

San Francisco-based Pacific Gas and Electric Co. last week filed formal objections to the state regulators’ competing reorganization plan in the utility’s ongoing Chapter 11 bankruptcy case in a federal district court. The utility outlined its major objections with an alternative reorganization plan proposed in the court proceedings by the California Public Utilities Commission.

Tossing aside arguments by an Arizona regulatory commission representative who came to San Francisco to articulate his state’s case, California regulators Thursday unanimously agreed to adopt proposed rules for mandating that the state’s major gas and electric utilities bid to keep up to 725 MMcf/d of firm capacity on El Paso Natural Gas serving the state to prevent it from being shifted to neighboring Arizona.

Pacific Gas and Electric Co., San Francisco, got permission last Wednesday from a federal district court to appeal an earlier decision by the judge in its 15-month-old Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings. The decision says the utility’s proposed reorganization plan may not preempt 36 California state laws applying to its business as a regulated utility.

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.

California Attorney General Bill Lockyer last week filed complaints in a San Francisco state superior court against four merchant generators, alleging “flagrant violation of rules” related to electricity transmission and for “charging millions of dollars for emergency generating capacity that the companies never provided as promised.” The action was taken against Dynegy, Mirant, Reliant Energy, Williams and their affiliates, seeking more than $150 million in penalties and restitution.

For a third straight month, Pacific Gas and Electric Co., San Francisco, reported Thursday that natural gas prices have settled into their “historical averages,” as the utility’s retail natural gas prices through the end of March this year are about 60% below last year’s record levels. In March, the PG&E utility announced that the average residential bill for natural gas will be $39.23, a 59% drop from March 2001 when the average residential bill was $95.06.

A federal bankruptcy judge in San Francisco last Wednesday gave the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) approval to file an alternate reorganization plan for Pacific Gas and Electric Co. as part of the utility’s Chapter 11 proceedings. Both sides immediately interpreted Judge Dennis Montali’s decision as a plus for their side in the ongoing bankruptcy battle. The CPUC said it would file its plan by April 15, noting that it expects the creditors’ committee to support it.