Southern California Gas

The good news: For the first time in 2012, Southern California gasoline prices are lower than they were at the same time last year. The bad news: They are still a whopping 50 cents a gallon higher than they were in January, according to the Automobile Club of Southern California's Weekend Gas Watch. Still, the region's fuel prices have been dropping for six straight weeks. “We are seeing several more stations with prices under $4 a gallon in east Los Angeles County, Costa Mesa, the Palm Springs area, San Bernardino and Escondido,” said Auto Club spokesman Jeffrey Spring.

Almost 21 million residential customers of Southern California Gas Co. will see their monthly bills increase by about 5%, or $1.94, now that state utility regulators have approved a four-year plan to guarantee revenue collected by the nation's largest natural gas distribution network. The California Public Utilities Commission on Thursday granted the unit of San Diego-based Sempra Energy a rate increase totaling $1.95 billion for 2012 through 2015. The amount is $84.83 million more than current revenue but $154 million less than the company asked for at the start of a lengthy legal proceeding, the commission said.

Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese customers of the Southern California Gas Co. will be able to use their native languages to speak with service representatives through a toll-free telephone service to be inaugurated early next year. The planned multilanguage service center was among steps to improve the utility's service to Southern California's rapidly growing Asian population announced Wednesday in response to recommendations from an Asian-American community advisory panel.

Gov. Jerry Brown took “emergency steps” Sunday to try to bring down record gas prices in the state. He directed the California Air Resources Board to increase the fuel supply by allowing the immediate sale and import of cheaper and more available winter-blend gasoline. The move would reduce the price of gas in California by 15 to 20 cents per gallon, probably within a few days, said energy expert Chris Faulkner of Dallas-based Breitling Oil and Gas. “This would immediately increase the supply of gasoline in California,” Faulkner said, but he cautioned that it would take a few days for the governor's move to be reflected at the pump.

Suspense over whether the Gas Co. Tower in downtown Los Angeles will remain the headquarters of Southern California Gas Co. is over: The big utility is staying put in its signature tower for the next 15 years. Real estate industry analysts had been watching to see whether the gas company would bail out on troubled landlord MPG Office Trust Inc., formerly Maguire Properties Inc., and move its offices elsewhere. Southern California Gas said Wednesday that it would keep its more than 1,300 employees in 350,000 square feet in the building at 555 W. Fifth St., where it has been the anchor tenant since the tower was completed in 1991.

By next week, Southern California Gas customers will begin to receive newly designed gas bills that are larger and less cluttered than the old bills. The gas company said it spent nearly two years and about $50,000 to redesign the bills, which have been the subject of 6 million customer questions and complaints each year. The gas company said it expects to save $250,000 yearly in customer service costs related to gas bill inquiries.

The Los Angeles-based subsidiary of Pacific Lighting said that average rates should rise by 6.75% a year, assuming a 5.65% inflation rate, through 2000. SoCal Gas said its gas acquisition costs fell 8% this year and are expected to decline through next year due to an oversupply of natural gas. Residential customers will use 30% less gas by 2000, but the Southern California market will grow by 17.

John C. Abram, chairman and chief executive officer of Southern California Gas Co. during the turbulent early 1980s, when prices for natural gas were rising and supplies were declining, has died. He was 82. Abram, a staunch opponent of industry deregulation proposed by the Reagan administration, died Sept. 4 at his home in Glendale of undisclosed causes.

Ending an ill-fated diversification into retailing and energy exploration, Pacific Enterprises Corp., parent of Southern California Gas Co., confirmed Monday that it will cut its 300-person corporate staff by 90%. The troubled company had mentioned possible cuts in its headquarters staff in February, when it announced that it would sell off all non-utility operations. But the extent of the job cuts wasn't disclosed until Chief Executive Willis B.

More than 500 Montebello landowners who contend they were cheated by Southern California Gas Co. won a bitter victory Thursday when the California Public Utilities Commission fined the giant utility nearly $3.5 million for allegedly forcing the property owners to sell their mineral rights at unfair prices and lying about their actions to regulators. The fine is part of a settlement that allows the property owners, many of whom are elderly, to undo the deals with the gas company.

The rapid rise in gasoline prices, sparked by a refinery fire last week, has slowed and may have peaked, according to the Automobile Club of Southern California. Since the fire at Chevron Corp.'s Richmond Refinery in the Bay Area on Aug. 6, the average retail price of a gallon of regular gasoline in California has shot up 25.8 cents. At one point, it jumped 5 cents overnight. Although part of the refinery damaged by the fire is still shut down, the rise in prices has cooled. "Southern California gas prices have actually only risen by about 2 cents since Sunday, and most of the week-to-week increase occurred last Friday and Saturday," Auto Club spokesman Jeffrey Spring said.

Retail gasoline prices in Southern California fell for a second straight week, but only enough to bring them close to the highest prices drivers were paying in 2011, according to the Automobile Club of Southern California's Weekend Gas Watch. The average price of self-serve regular gasoline in the Los Angeles-Long Beach area is $4.285 per gallon, which is 4.7 cents less than last week, 10 cents higher than last month, and 23 cents higher than last year. In Orange County, the price is $4.243 a gallon, down 6.67 cents since last week, but still 9.1 cents higher than last month and 11.5 cents high than last year.

The fifth straight week of gas price declines in Southern California has finally brought motorists back in range of what they were paying at the pump last year, according to the Automobile Club of Southern California's Weekend Gas Watch. The average cost of a gallon of regular gasoline in the Los Angeles-Long Beach area, for example, fell another four cents since last week to $4.228, the Automobile Club said. That was 15.7 cents a gallon lower than last month's price and just a penny a gallon higher than what motorists were paying last year.

Wes Rogers used a garden hose to fight flames from the 2008 Sesnon fire that had reached the fence of his home in the northwest San Fernando Valley. The memory of the blaze, caused by a downed Southern California Gas Co. electrical distribution wire, is raw. And that has made the utility's plan to revamp its natural gas storage facility in Aliso Canyon a tough sell to residents wary of another fire in the same bushy hills north of Porter Ranch. According to the state Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, power lines were suspected in or blamed for four of the 20 largest wildfires in California history, including the Sesnon blaze, which blackened 14,703 acres, destroyed 15 homes and dozens of outbuildings, and remains the suspected cause of a fatal car crash on the 118 Freeway.

Suspense over whether the Gas Co. Tower in downtown Los Angeles will remain the headquarters of Southern California Gas Co. is over: The big utility is staying put in its signature tower for the next 15 years. Real estate industry analysts had been watching to see whether the gas company would bail out on troubled landlord MPG Office Trust Inc., formerly Maguire Properties Inc., and move its offices elsewhere. Southern California Gas said Wednesday that it would keep its more than 1,300 employees in 350,000 square feet in the building at 555 W. Fifth St., where it has been the anchor tenant since the tower was completed in 1991.

The average price of a gallon of gasoline in Southern California took the biggest one-week drop during any May in 10 years, just as vacationers prepare for Memorial Day weekend travel. Since last week, the price of a gallon of gas dropped nearly 7 cents in the Los Angeles and Long Beach region and in Orange County, sliding an additional cent or more in San Diego, Santa Barbara, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, according to the Automobile Club of Southern California. The average gallon of regular gasoline sells for $3.03 in the Los Angeles area, $3.02 in Orange County, $3.09 in Santa Barbara and $3.01 in Riverside and San Bernardino counties, according to the Auto Club.

Pacific Enterprises Corp. on Monday announced the $371-million sale of its domestic oil and gas assets to Hunt Oil Co., saying the deal will allow it to concentrate on its core utility business. The Los Angeles company, which is in the process of being broken up after a number of acquisitions during the 1980s, said the sale includes energy reserves on nearly 1.4 million acres of land in the Rocky Mountains, the Midwest and Gulf Coast states.

As the state Public Utilities Commission today weighs whether to force Southern California Gas to ride to the rescue of Pacific Gas & Electric, the two utilities are spinning dueling doomsday scenarios of a gas-short February. Cash-strapped PG&E has taken the extraordinary step of asking the commission to order Southern California Gas to sell emergency supplies.

Several California utilities should be penalized for receiving bonuses while falling short of their energy-saving goals, the state utility regulator's independent watchdog arm said Tuesday. From 2006 to 2008, Southern California Edison , Pacific Gas & Electric Co., San Diego Gas & Electric Co. and Southern California Gas Co. spent $2 billion of customers' money, amassed through a small charge on each bill, to fund energy efficiency programs that were expected to return $2.7 billion in savings.