Sempra Energy

Sempra Energy said second-quarter profit fell 26% from last year even as its energy-trading business produced strong results. The company earned $277 million, or $1.05 a share, compared with $373 million, or $1.43, a year earlier. The 2006 figure included $188 million, or 72 cents a share, from selling a coal-fired power plant in Texas and other assets. Revenue climbed 7% to $2.66 billion.

Sempra Energy, owner of the largest U.S. natural-gas utility, said it agreed to buy the development rights to a wind-power facility in Mexico as part of a venture into renewable energy. Sempra said it agreed to acquire the rights to develop a 250-megawatt wind-power project near La Rumorosa, a town in Baja California about 70 miles east of San Diego, where Sempra is based. It is buying the rights from Cannon Power Corp. One megawatt is enough to power about 750 average U.S. homes.

Utility owner Sempra Energy said Wednesday that its first-quarter earnings fell 11% and missed Wall Street expectations but blamed the shortfall on accounting rules that cut into commodities trading profit. Despite the profit slide, Sempra Chief Executive Don Felsinger said he was pleased with the results. He declared that San Diego-based Sempra, which owns Southern California Gas Co. and San Diego Gas & Electric Co., was on track to meet its full-year earnings estimate of $3.75 to $3.

Sempra Energy, parent of Southern California Gas Co. and San Diego Gas & Electric Co., on Thursday issued a forecast for 2008 earnings that was below Wall Street expectations. Net income will be $3.85 to $4.05 a share in 2008, San Diego-based Sempra said in a statement before a presentation to analysts. That projection falls short of analysts' consensus forecast of $4.15 a share, according to a Thomson Financial poll. Last month, Sempra raised its guidance for 2007 earnings to a range of $3.

Sempra Energy, owner of Southern California Gas Co. and San Diego Gas & Electric Co., on Thursday said fourth-quarter profit dropped 65% after it sold investments in Argentina that had declined in value. San Diego-based Sempra raised its 2007 profit forecast to a range of $3.75 to $3.95 a share from a previous forecast of $3.50 to $3.70. In the fourth quarter, net income fell to $125 million, or 47 cents a share, from $355 million, or $1.38, Sempra said. Revenue fell 17% to $3.

Sempra Energy said Wednesday that it would shed holdings in two natural gas distributors in Argentina and take a loss of about $200 million on an investment that soured when the country went into an economic tailspin five years ago. The San Diego-based company is seeking buyers for its 37% stake in Camuzzi Gas Pampeana and its 39% of Camuzzi del Sur, which serve a combined 1.5 million customers in central and southern Argentina.

If there's anything comforting for Californians wilting in the seemingly endless run of triple-digit temperatures, it's that the kilowatt crunch of today has few forecasters talking about a market meltdown of the type the state endured in 2000-01. "The major difference is that we know the monster that we're dealing with. We can see it. It's Mother Nature that's really tasking us," said Michael Shames, executive director of the Utility Consumers' Action Network, a San Diego watchdog group.

San Diego County Superior Court Judge Ronald Prager gave final approval to a nearly $1.8-billion settlement with Sempra Energy over allegations that it conspired to restrict natural gas supplies and raise prices during the state's energy crisis. Sempra, which owns utilities Southern California Gas Co. and San Diego Gas & Electric Co.

Lawyers for the California attorney general's office and others mounted a last-ditch effort Thursday to alter a nearly $1.8-billion settlement with Sempra Energy over allegations that it conspired to restrict natural gassupplies and raise prices during the state's energy crisis. San Diego Superior Court Judge Ronald Prager had given the pact his blessing in a tentative ruling issued late Wednesday.

OAO Gazprom, the world's biggest natural gas producer, said it would work with San Diego-based Sempra Energy to help sell liquefied natural gas from an offshore project in the Russian Arctic to the U.S. Moscow-based Gazprom is looking for foreign partners to develop the giant Shtokman gas field in the Barents Sea. San Ramon, Calif.-based Chevron Corp. and Houston-based ConocoPhillips are seeking to join, as are France's Total and Norway's Statoil and Norsk Hydro.