The leaders of energy and infrastructure holding company Sempra plan to sell the company’s natural gas business in Mexico and a stake of its infrastructure group so they can funnel more cash to their Texas and California electric utilities’ growth plans.
Sempra’s Ecogas gas distribution utility in northern Mexico has roughly 628,000 customers and finished 2024 with about $290 million in plant, pipelines and other assets on its books. It is owned by Sempra Infrastructure, which also has built a network of liquefied natural gas and pipeline and storage assets across the region. Chairman and CEO Jeff Martin and his team aren’t saying how large the minority stake they’re looking to sell might be but in a statement did note the sales in 2021 and 2022 of 20% and 10%, respectively, of the division.
The latter of those deals valued Sempra Infrastructure at nearly $18 billion and Sempra’s executives say that have since then added value to the group by investing in its LNG assets, including at the Port Arthur complex in Texas.
“We continually review opportunities to realign our portfolio to support the growth and expansion of our Texas and California utilities, while also maintaining a strong balance sheet,” Martin said in a statement. “We believe we can successfully accomplish both objectives as we continue our work to drive enhanced long-term value for our shareholders. Further, these actions are designed to advance our company’s broader effort to simplify the business.”
Martin also said the planned sales will mean Sempra will have to issue less stock to fund capital spending plans. He and his team early this year sketched out a 2025-2029 capital spending plan of $56 billion. That figure was 16% larger than their previous capex outlook for 2024 through 2028 and incorporates annual rate base growth of 10%.
The bulk of that growth is being allocated to Sempra Texas, where Oncor’s five-year capital plan grew by about 50% to $36.1 billion. (Oncor CEO Allen Nye and his team think there’s an additional $12 billion of capex from 2027 to 2029.) More than 60% of those dollars are being earmarked for transmission projects, with the oil-and-gas Delaware and Permian basin regions a particular focus.
Capex at Sempra California, on the other hand, is forecast to total $22.4 billion through 2029, with nearly half of that amount going to electric projects. (Sempra also runs gas utilities in Southern California.)
The Sempra team said the planned divestments should grow the company’s profits and are expected to be completed by the fall of next year. In an update to their financing plans in late February, they included at least $1 billion of proceeds from selling parts of the Sempra Infrastructure portfolio.
Shares of Sempra (Ticker: SRE) closed April 4 at $65.88 after dropping nearly 7% amid the second day of a market selloff after President Trump’s tariffs announcement. Over the past six months, they have lost 20% of their value, a move that has cut Sempra’s market capitalization to about $43 billion.
