Natural Gas Prices

Besieged by creditors and crippled by the sagging wholesale power market, Calpine Corp. lost almost $10 billion in 2005 as it filed for U.S. Bankruptcy Court protection, the company said Friday. The San Jose company's loss included $4.5 billion in noncash write-offs for plants and projects that have plummeted in value, as well as $5 billion in reorganization and bankruptcy costs, according to the 2005 financial report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Calpine, which on Dec.

A $25-billion pipeline carrying natural gas from Alaska to the Lower 48 states would play an important role in satisfying the nation's long-term supply needs, but experts said Wednesday that it would not reverse America's rising dependence on imports or cause fuel prices to plunge. Alaska moved the project to the front burner Tuesday when it reached a tentative pact with three oil companies to build the pipeline to transport as much as 4.

Southern California Gas Co. and San Diego Gas & Electric said their customers would see lower energy bills in the coming months because of warmer-than-normal weather in January. The warmer conditions have driven down the cost of natural gas, reducing winter gas and electricity bills from earlier estimates, said the utilities, which are units of Sempra Energy.

RUSSIA AND Ukraine have ended their spat over natural gas prices. Ukraine will pay more, but much less than Russia originally demanded. That's the good news. The bad news is that the outcome owed little to Western diplomacy. Ukraine, a budding democracy, deserves Western support. Europe squawked when Russia cut its gas supplies, but that hardly amounted to a coherent policy of backing Ukraine against what was a huge -- albeit spectacularly inept -- Russian power play.

The bankruptcy filing by the state's largest independent electricity generator, Calpine Corp., could lead to higher monthly bills for many ratepayers but is unlikely to result in blackouts next summer, energy regulators and analysts said Wednesday.

Electricity rates for more than two-thirds of Southern California Edison's customers will rise as much as 18% in the new year, the company said Tuesday. With winter starting today, the utility's 4.6 million residential and commercial customers can expect three increases in coming months. The company, a unit of Edison International in Rosemead, said soaring prices for natural gas, which fuels most of the state's power plants, were the main culprit.

Surging energy prices helped send major stock indexes lower Thursday, driving the Dow Jones industrial average back into the red for the year. Wall Street was rattled as crude oil prices rose above $60 a barrel and as natural gas reached a record high, reviving concern that fuel costs may curtail consumer spending. In other trading, gold extended its rally, driving the metal's price to a 24-year high, nearing $520 an ounce. The Dow slid 55.79 points, or 0.5%, to 10,755.

The outlook dimmed Friday for Calpine Corp. as a judge ordered the nation's largest independent power producer to pay $313 million by Jan. 22 -- a blow that could help push the San Jose company into Bankruptcy Court. For Calpine, cash-strapped and laden with more $17 billion in debt, Friday's ruling is only the latest setback to pummel the value of its stock and bonds and threaten its corporate survival.

The top executive of Sempra Energy told a jury Monday that a steep increase in natural gas prices had little effect on the wild price increases in electricity that struck California in 2000. "I don't want to say it was trivial, but it was quite small," Sempra Chairman and Chief Executive Stephen Baum said during his second day of testimony in a civil lawsuit being heard in San Diego County Superior Court.

Energy regulators should freeze rates for utilities' low-income customers to protect them from sharp hikes in winter natural gas bills, advocacy groups testified Thursday at a special hearing of the California Public Utilities Commission. Increases for other residential ratepayers and small businesses shouldn't exceed 20% of current levels during the coldest months of the year, said representatives speaking for consumers, the poor and the infirm.