OAKLAND — PG&E profits rocketed higher in the second quarter of 2023, bolstered by solid increases in the utility behemoth’s revenue from its electricity and gas operations, the company reported Thursday.
The utility earned $406 million in its April-through-June second quarter, an increase of 17.3% over the company’s profits of $356 million during the same period a year ago.
Oakland-based PG&E said it produced $5.29 billion in revenue in the second quarter, up 3.4% from $5.12 billion in the year-ago April-June period.
Electricity revenue totaled $3.85 billion, up 4.4% from the year before, while gas revenue was $1.44 billion, a 0.7% increase from the 2022 second quarter.
“Through the first half of 2023, we feel confident that we continue to reduce physical risk on our system overall,” said Patricia Poppe, PG&E’s chief executive officer.
The robust improvement in the company’s financial picture is being driven by multiple factors, PG&E said. These include lower expenses related to PG&E’s now-concluded bankruptcy case and lower wildfire-related costs.
PG&E has been attempting to bounce back from a decade of disasters that began in 2010. This stretch of catastrophes included the fatal 2010 gas explosion in San Bruno and a string of lethal wildfires in Northern California.
In the wake of the cataclysms, PG&E has been attempting to greatly improve both its electric and gas systems to help the utility ward off the kinds of disasters that for years had plagued the company and residents in its service territory.
“Our investments since 2017 have made a dramatic difference in preventing catastrophic wildfires,” Poppe said.