Posted on 01/13/2019 11:54:20 AM PST by tcrlaf
California utility owner PG&E Corp is in discussions with investment banks about a multibillion-dollar financing package to help navigate bankruptcy proceedings, a sign the company's Chapter 11 filing preparations are intensifying in the wake of potentially staggering liabilities from wildfires, people familiar with the matter said on Sunday.
PG&E Corp is in touch with large banks about so-called debtor-in-possession financing that could total between $3 billion and $5 billion, though the exact figure remains in flux and could end up being higher, the sources said.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
They should be used to it by now.
What do you want to bet that within 30 days the California puc will Grant an automatic rate rise of at least 15% to cover the cost of the state taking over PG&E, and additionally, a new agency whose purpose will be to subsidize low-income residents of California, particularly illegal aliens; power and gas bills. This new agency will be headed by some good buddy of Gavin Newsom. And there will be five to eight Commissioners on this committee no, each one of them hired had a salary of at least $175,000 per year. You can take all of that to the bank.
They don’t need electricity in californicate. They have windmills, solar panels and enough poop on the streets for a biogenerator.
Ratepayers will be screwed.
Management will get their bonuses.
Nobody will be fired.
Lots of west coast retirements are about to get hosed, and likely Calpers, as well.
“Legal California homeowners are about to get massively screwed...”
It actually started as a consequence of the Recent fires in Napa and Santa Rosa a couple of years ago. And while there is significant evidence that PG&E had/has some OSP maintenance issues that contributed to those fires, the real culprit is the State of California for its “let nature manage the forests without human intervention” policy. We have seen substantial increases in our H/O insurance that are directly related their costs associated with fire-related losses. I mean insurance is a “risk pool” that has seen huge losses that have to be covered by some means.
And while I don’t like the increased costs, putting PG&E into bankruptcy really doesn’t solve the problem. Face it, the collective homeowner cadre will be on the hook for these losses, in much the same way that welfare payments actually are paid by the taxpayers and not the government. Trump is doing the right thing telling CA that the Federal money pot will not be coming to their rescue any longer unless and until they start a program to clean up our forests. Along with that, PG&E has to step up and repair/replace its aging OSP so that they are not contributors to the problem.
All of it is really no different than the ongoing government payouts for hurricanes and tornados, except that we can readily see the exposure here.
My wife and I were looking out our kitchen windows ( we are on top of a hill) and remarked to each other just how the landscape below us has changed over the 36 years we’ve lived here. Our valley was initially a traditional Coastal California landscape with mostly grasslands punctuated with large, old Valley Oaks. Now, it’s pretty much filled up with housing, and the landscaping people have put in, simply makes it many times more likely to suffer devastation from a fire. So much to say, we now, on our insurance policy pay a “vegetation surcharge” because the insurance companies have seen the same picture as the one I’ve described.
You fail to appreciate the spiritual solution to this entire matter. The proper Greenie solution is to take the president of PG&E out to a sacred tree, sacrifice him to Gia by an appropriate Aztec procedure, plug an extension cord into the tree and, BINGO!!, CA will have all the clean power it wants.
A few weeks ago, I was flipping channels came came across the Global Warming Weather Channel.
One narrator said a transformer(?) in one of the major fire areas appeared to have been shot? I thought “What in the world?”.
“One narrator said a transformer(?) in one of the major fire areas appeared to have been shot? I thought “What in the world?””
I had not seen that. I do know that the Paradise fire started with the failure of one of PG&E’s HV transmission towers. Towers that they had agreed needed to be replaced because they were structurally weak, and that they had failed to meet their own timetable for the replacement. What seems to be happening with PG&E is that they are skimping on maintenance to help their bottom line. Plus they have had a series of screwups that have cost them a ton of money ( i.e the San Bruno gas line fire, and blowing up a home in Carmel during a citywide gas line lining project). We have a second home in Carmel, and at the end of the day, as part of their settlement with the city, they repaved a lot of the streets there, including the one on which our place is located.
[I do know that the Paradise fire started with the failure of one of PG&E’s HV transmission towers.]
Wow, makes ya wonder. How many were lost in Paradise? Last I heard was like 28 but that was early on.
I read something like some people basically disappeared. Seems hard to believe there would be no remains. Or too difficult to find, maybe. Wow.
Death toll: 84.
Yikes. Didn’t know it hit that high. Wow.
I guess I should not be surprised the way things were looking.
“putting PG&E into bankruptcy really doesn’t solve the problem.”
It actually solves the problem at-hand. Any money PG&E gets it’s hands on pre-bankruptcy is going to lawyers suing them over liability for the fires - justified or not. If it’s not justified, they’ll go broke proving it.
It stops the feeding frenzy - they’ll only get the carcass of the previous legal entity.
When a new company emerges - bolstered by significantly higher rates from it’s customers, they’ll have a clean slate, and a bright financial future. Until they are blamed for something else.
Just imagine if PG&S shut down over this. What would California be like?
just PG&E customers. SoCal Edison customers should be unaffected unless Edison decides to take over PG&E.
“When a new company emerges - bolstered by significantly higher rates from it’s customers, they’ll have a clean slate, and a bright financial future. Until they are blamed for something else.”
Excellent point! Unfortunately, they way things work here with public utilities, I am quite sure the “fix is in” with the Legislature. They are poised to use taxpayer funds to “indemnify” PG&E. I would like to see them put under, because the management there has been “selling off assets” for decades. They own almost no generating capacity, so they are only a “distributor” now.. There is a big natural gas-fired generating station at Crow’s Landing. They sold it to someone decades ago, and by its appearance, they plan on running it into the ground and the shutting it down.
Oh, you can bet the legislature will extract their due through endemic corruption.
The new PG&E will go along with it. Why not? It will be passed along to the consumer, so they don’t care.
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