{"id":6323,"date":"2019-01-14T19:37:09","date_gmt":"2019-01-14T19:37:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/us-wildfires-push-energy-firm-pge-to-bankruptcy-protection\/"},"modified":"2019-01-14T19:37:09","modified_gmt":"2019-01-14T19:37:09","slug":"us-wildfires-push-energy-firm-pge-to-bankruptcy-protection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/us-wildfires-push-energy-firm-pge-to-bankruptcy-protection\/","title":{"rendered":"US wildfires push energy firm PG&E to bankruptcy protection"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\"FirefightersImage copyright<\/span>
\n AFP<\/span><\/p>\n

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A Californian energy firm has said it plans to file for bankruptcy protection as it faces huge costs from last year’s wildfires.<\/p>\n

Pacific Gas and Electric Corporation (PG&E) said the fires, which devastated huge areas of California, had triggered “significant” potential liabilities.<\/p>\n

Reports say the company could face costs of up to $30bn (\u00a323bn).<\/p>\n

In November, the most deadly fire in Californian history began in the town of Paradise, killing 86 people.<\/p>\n

PG&E, which serves 15 million Californians – almost 40% of the population of the state – warned then it could face “significant liability” beyond its insured amount if its equipment was found to have caused the fire. <\/p>\n

The company, which has 20,000 employees, has assured its customers it expects to continue supplying power “without disruption”. <\/p>\n

On Sunday, PG&E’s chief executive, Geisha Williams, resigned.<\/p>\n

‘Devastating’ wildfires<\/h2>\n

In a statement issued on Monday,<\/a> PG&E said it planned to file for bankruptcy protection – under a procedure known as Chapter 11 – “on or about” 29 January.<\/p>\n

However, it added it was “not going out of business”, and said it did not expect any impact on gas or electricity services for its customers.<\/p>\n

Shares in the company are expected to fall by more than 50% when trading begins on Monday.<\/p>\n

Its debt has already been downgraded to junk status, a rating that indicates investors have little faith their money will be paid back.<\/p>\n

The 150-year-old company said: “We recognise that the devastating and unprecedented Northern California wildfires of 2017 and 2018 have had a profound impact on our customers and their communities. <\/p>\n

“PG&E faces extensive litigation and significant potential liabilities resulting from these wildfires.<\/p>\n

“It is clear that a solution is needed that enables the continued safe delivery of natural gas and electric service to our customers and supports the orderly, fair and expeditious resolution of PG&E’s potential liabilities resulting from the recent wildfires.”<\/p>\n

It went on to say that a Chapter 11 reorganisation was the only viable option for meeting these goals. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n


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Source<\/a> by [author_name]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Image copyright AFP A Californian energy firm has said it plans to file for bankruptcy protection as it faces huge costs from last year’s wildfires. Pacific Gas and Electric Corporation (PG&E) said the fires, which devastated huge areas of California, had triggered “significant” potential liabilities. Reports say the company could face costs of up to … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":6324,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}