They requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about the crisis. 'That was very localized pain, and it really surprised a lot of people.'Įnergy traders with three Texas electric cooperatives told Reuters they paid as much as $400 per mmBtu during a four-day stretch that began Valentine's Day weekend. 'That's what happens when you go from a very well supplied market to a very tight market, and in this case a catastrophically tight market,' said one natural gas trader. 11 into the hundreds of dollars, with Tulsa's hub surging to a record $1,192.86 on Feb. Chief Executive Bernard Looney said he wanted to 'deftly avoid' giving an exact number for the trading division's results.Īt the beginning of February, gas prices ranged from $2.50 to $3 per million British thermal unit (mmBtu) at hubs from Houston to Tulsa, Oklahoma. Anticipating high demand, Kinder Morgan said it dispatched workers and backup generators ahead of the storm to its gas storage and pipeline facilities.Ī source close to BP said gas trading contributed hundreds of millions of dollars to the company's first quarter results. Kinder Morgan, another gas storage and pipeline operator, earned about $1 billion during the storm, the vast majority from higher gas prices and sales. Rival Enterprise Products Partners said the storm led to gains of about $250 million in the first quarter. The pipeline giant made most of its money from trading and from selling what it had in storage during the period when prices skyrocketed.Įnergy Transfer did not comment for this story. BofA did not respond to a request for comment.Įnergy Transfer appears to have been the biggest winner, saying in its quarterly results it expects gains of about $2.4 billion for the year from the storm. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is reviewing gas and power markets for potential market manipulation. Utilities are complaining of price gouging and of unwarranted supply cancellations. The week-long output loss cost shale producer Pioneer Natural Resources (PXD.N) $80 million, Chevron (CVX.N) about $300 million, and Exxon Mobil (XOM.N) $800 million. Losers include producers that could not deliver oil and gas due to frozen wellheads, gathering systems and processing stations. It is possible that some companies may never collect on those sales due to ongoing litigation, however. The firms combined stand to reap billions of dollars in profits by selling gas and power during the storm, according to interviews and reviews of public documents. The biggest winners were companies with access to supplies, including leading energy trader Vitol, gas suppliers Kinder Morgan (KMI.N), Enterprise Products Partners (EPD.N) and Energy Transfer (ET.N), oil giant BP plc (BP.L), and banks Goldman Sachs (GS.N), Bank of America (BofA) (BAC.N) and Macquarie Group (MQG.AX).

Texas freeze 2021