PG&E Corp

The Utility provides natural gas transportation services to “core” customers (i.e., small commercial and residential customers) and to “non-core” customers (i.e., industrial, large commercial, and natural gas-fired electric generation facilities) that are connected to the Utility’s gas system in its service area. Core customers can purchase natural gas procurement service (i.e., natural gas supply) from either the Utility or non-utility third-party gas procurement service providers (referred to as “core transport agents”). When core customers purchase gas supply from a core transport agent, the Utility continues to provide gas delivery, metering, and billing services to customers. When the Utility provides both transportation and procurement services, the Utility refers to the combined service as “bundled” natural gas service. More than 96% of core customers, representing approximately 84% of the annual core market demand, receive bundled natural gas service from the Utility.

The Utility generally does not provide procurement service to non-core customers, which must purchase their gas supplies from third-party suppliers, unless the customer is a natural gas-fired generation facility with which the Utility has a power purchase agreement that includes its generation fuel expense. The Utility offers backbone gas transmission, gas delivery (local transmission and distribution), and gas storage services as separate and distinct services to its non-core customers. Access to the Utility’s backbone gas transmission system is available for all natural gas marketers and shippers, as well as non-core customers. The Utility also delivers gas to off-system customers (i.e., outside of the Utility’s service area) and to third-party natural gas storage customers.

Natural Gas Supplies

The Utility can receive natural gas from all the major natural gas basins in western North America, including basins in western Canada, the Rocky Mountains, and the southwestern United States. The Utility can also receive natural gas from fields in California. The Utility purchases natural gas to serve its core customers directly from producers and marketers in both Canada and the United States. The contract lengths and natural gas sources of the Utility’s portfolio of natural gas purchase contracts have varied generally based on market conditions. During 2023, the Utility purchased approximately 299,000 MMcf of natural gas (net of the sale of excess supply of gas). Substantially all of this natural gas was purchased under contracts with a term of one year or less. The Utility’s largest individual supplier represented approximately 54% of the total natural gas volume the Utility purchased during 2023.

Natural Gas System Assets

The Utility owns and operates an integrated natural gas transmission, storage, and distribution system that includes most of northern and central California. At December 31, 2023, the Utility’s natural gas system consisted of approximately 44,200 miles of distribution pipelines, over 6,400 miles of backbone and local transmission pipelines, and various storage facilities. The Utility owns and operates eight natural gas compressor stations on its backbone transmission system and one compressor station on its local transmission system that are used to move gas through the Utility’s pipelines. The Utility’s backbone transmission system is used to transport gas from the Utility’s interconnection with interstate pipelines, other local distribution companies, and California gas fields to the Utility’s local transmission and distribution systems.

The Utility has firm transportation agreements for the transportation of natural gas from various natural gas supply points and interconnection points to the Utility’s natural gas transportation system. These agreements provide transportation service from western Canada to the United States-Canada border, from the United States-Canada border to an interconnection point with the Utility’s natural gas transportation system at the Oregon-California border, from the U.S. Rocky Mountains to an interconnection point with the Utility’s natural gas transportation system at the Oregon-California border, and from supply points in the southwestern United States to interconnection points with the Utility’s natural gas transportation system in the area of California near Topock, Arizona. (For more information regarding the Utility’s natural gas transportation agreements, see Note 15 of the Notes to the Consolidated Financial Statements in Item 8.)

The Utility owns and operates three underground natural gas storage fields and has a 25% interest in a fourth storage field, all of which are connected to the Utility’s gas transmission system. In 2019, the CPUC approved the discontinuation, through closure or sale, of operations at two of the Utility’s owned and operated gas storage fields, Pleasant Creek and Los Medanos. The Utility expects to close on the sale of Pleasant Creek in 2024. The Utility plans to keep the Los Medanos storage field in operation as filed and approved in the 2023 GRC. The Utility owns and operates compressors and other facilities at these storage fields that are used to inject gas into the fields for storage and later for withdrawal. In addition, four independent storage operators are interconnected to the Utility’s Northern California gas transmission system.

In 2023, the Utility continued upgrading transmission pipeline to allow for the use of in-line inspection tools.

Natural Gas Operating Statistics

The following table shows the Utility’s operating statistics from 2021 through 2023 (excluding subsidiaries) for natural gas, including the classification of revenues by type of service. No single customer of the Utility accounted for 10% or more of consolidated revenues for bundled gas sales in 2023, 2022 or 2021.

(1)These amounts include natural gas provided by core transport agents and CCAs that procure their own supplies of natural gas for their respective customers.

(2) These amounts represent revenues authorized to be billed.