Southern California Gas Co. Launches New E-Commerce Site

Business Wire, August 5, 1999

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 5, 1999--

Southern California Gas Co. (SoCalGas) Thursday announced it has launched its newest version of GasSelect(R), a fully automated gas scheduling and energy management system.

This e-commerce application is now available through the World Wide Web to all subscribers.

Subscribers can go online at www.gasselect.com for real-time submission of gas nominations, trading gas delivery imbalances in a secondary market, and to get natural gas consumption information from electronic meters installed at customer sites.

Subscribers also can receive up-to-the-minute news on gas rates, operational notices, storage availability, new programs and services and other information from the online bulletin boards and through e-mail. Previously, customers had to access GasSelect(R) through a proprietary communications network.

GasSelect(R) is used to manage the delivery of 1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas into Southern California for both SoCalGas and San Diego Gas & Electric.

"By moving GasSelect(R) to the Internet we are keeping our commitment to our customers to meet the new emerging energy industry standards, which call for all business transactions to be conducted over the Web," said Lee Stewart, president of Energy Transportation Services at SoCalGas.

"We consider the Internet to be a valuable tool for business-to-business e-commerce transactions and customer service and plan to continue looking for new ways to use the Internet to meet the needs of our customers."

Southern California Gas Co. (SoCalGas) is the nation's largest natural gas distribution utility, serving 18 million consumers through 4.9 million meters. The company's service area encompasses 23,000 square miles in most of central and Southern California. SoCalGas is a subsidiary of Sempra Energy (NYSE:SRE), a Fortune 500 energy services holding company based in San Diego.