California utility to sell Mississippi, Alabama gas storage

A California company says it plans to sell underground natural gas storage facilities in central Mississippi and southwest Alabama.

Sempra Energy of San Diego announced last week that it would sell its Mississippi Hub facility southeast of Jackson and its 91 percent share of Bay Gas Storage northeast of Mobile.The company says it also plans to sell solar and wind electrical generating facilities nationwide.

Sempra says it will write down asset values by about $1.5 billion, but doesn’t expect selling costs to exceed more than $10 million in cash.

Activist investors have been pressuring Sempra to break up the company.

Sempra owned natural gas utilities based in Mobile and Hattiesburg, but sold them to St. Louis-based Spire for $320 million in 2016, with Spire assuming $67 million in debt.

(Associated Press, copyright 2018)

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