Energy Wise

Steve Player speaks with Joe Householder, SVP, controller, and chief accounting officer of Sempra Energy.

Steve Player: Let's talk a little bit about Sempra Energy, because I think that it's a new name for some people. How did Sempra come together?

Joe Householder: Well, this year marks Sempra's 10th anniversary. It came together through a merger involving Pacific Enterprises, which is the holding company that owns Southern California Gas Company, the largest gas distribution company in the United States. The other company was San Diego Gas & Electric, which is the regional gas and electric distribution company here in San Diego.

Since the merger, we've grown dramatically. Our market value has nearly doubled and our assets have more than tripled. We've been growing at a very fast pace and continue to look forward to that kind of a growth going forward.

SP: I notice that you guys are now ranked number 232 on the 2008 Fortune 500 list. Are you primarily just based in Southern California or are you reaching beyond?

Householder: We're reaching out beyond that. Our two major utilities are here in Southern California. They go from the Central Valley all the way down to the Mexican border, and from the coast to the eastern side of California. But then we have actually engaged in a number of projects that have spread us throughout the country and around the globe. We have four generation plants that we've built in the Southwest.

We have a couple of billion dollars' worth of investment in Baja, Mexico, across the border near us here in San Diego. And we have a commodity trading business that spans the globe and has operations in London and Geneva and in Asia. Earlier this year, we formed a joint venture with The Royal Bank of Scotland and took our commodity trading business into it on April 1; we now own approximately a 50 percent interest in that business with The Royal Bank of Scotland. This will help that business grow dramatically. So we are truly a global company. We also own some utilities in South America.

SP: In terms of the commodities, are you trading gas? Electricity? What's the extent of the products that you trade?

Householder: It's the whole span of commodities in the energy sector, so natural gas and power are the primary commodities. But we also trade oil, and we trade metals -- not so much precious metals, but aluminum and copper and metals like that.