Rival companies, state AGs accuse Texas pipeline operators of fraud over prices during Uri
Laissez-faire markets are fun until someone puts an eye out.
Texas leaders created one of the world’s least-regulated pipeline systems on purpose. With so many oil and natural gas wells and one of the world’s largest refinery complexes, the state prized speed and innovation over leveling the playing field or protecting consumers.
The result is a critical industry that rakes in billions in profits from Texas that it cannot find elsewhere. Typically, average Texans don’t worry about pipelines until one breaks or a company tries to build one in their neighborhood. But once you know the games they play, you know.
The pipelines are also critical for the Texas electric grid, which relies on gas for more than 40 percent of power generation.
This is part three of a series about the state’s internal natural gas pipeline system. In part two, I explained how energy data firm CirclesX sued pipeline operators in February, alleging they withheld natural gas to drive up prices during Winter Storm Uri. But CirclesX isn’t the only entity making allegations; regulators in other states have filed similar suits, and some of the pipeline firms have sued one another, alleging fraud.
PART ONE: Deadly Texas blackouts during 2021 freeze were caused by greed, not the cold, lawsuits allege
Prices in Kansas
In one example, Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach filed a $50 million suit against Houston-based Macquarie Energy in February. The civil suit alleges one of the nation’s largest pipeline and energy trading firms manipulated commodities exchanges to maximize profits during the 2021 storm.
In his suit, Kobach says trading data proves Macquarie intentionally drove up the Southern Star Gas Daily benchmark price, which determines what customers pay in Kansas, Oklahoma and Missouri. The Southern Star is an interstate natural gas pipeline that originates in Texas.
“Aggravating an already stressed market, on the morning of February 16, 2021, Macquarie entered into an economically irrational natural gas trade in which it purchased natural gas for next-day delivery within Southern Star at the single highest price ever paid for Southern Star natural gas,” the suit alleges. “The trade was not a fiasco for Macquarie, but instead a resounding financial success — because the actual effect … was to manipulate the Platts Southern Star Gas Daily price for February 17, 2021, upwards.”
Macquarie had positioned itself to sell gas on Feb. 17 and made enormous profits at the expense of other traders and gas customers, including Kansas homeowners, Kobach alleges. Days after the storm, Macquarie announced in a press release that it would show a profit thanks to the storm for its fiscal year that ended in 2021.
PROFITS IN TRAGEDY: Winners, losers emerge from Texas' historic winter storm
Executives credited “higher income … driven by (natural gas) inventory management” in North America, a bullet point in the company’s May 7, 2022 presentation reported. Net profits from the sector totaled $317 million, up 50 percent, and constituted all the company’s profits for the year, a financial analysis showed.
A Macquarie spokesman said the company does not comment on pending litigation.
In a separate legal case, Exxon subsidiary XTO Energy sued Macquarie Energy in Austin, claiming the firm improperly rejected XTO’s declaration of a natural disaster to suspend delivery of natural gas. Macquarie says XTO had no reason to declare an emergency and demanded XTO pay $11 million in damages, even though XTO alleges Macquarie declared an emergency on the same dates.
Exxon said in a statement it does not comment on pending litigation.
PART TWO: Texas pipeline operators triggered deadly 2021 blackouts while chasing profits, lawsuit alleges
Oklahoma investigates
Meanwhile, in Oklahoma, one of the state’s top oil and gas regulators asked the attorney general to investigate pipeline operators and gas traders for market manipulation that cost the state $3 billion. Oklahoma Corporation Commissioner Bob Anthony was exasperated because his colleagues would not look into evidence of illegal behavior.
“All the same questions raised … about utility management decision-making during the February 2021 Winter Storm are relevant again here, as are the questions about price-gouging, fraud and market manipulation,” Anthony wrote in an official commission filing.
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Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond agreed and began recruiting outside law firms to bring suit.
In 2021, San Antonio’s city-owned utility CPS Energy sued 16 natural gas companies over $850 million in surprise fuel bills from the 2021 storm. In some cases, CPS has reached settlements but the details remain secret.
“I wouldn’t have gotten that good of a deal if everybody else in the market knew the company was giving us that deal,” Shanna Ramirez, CPS Energy’s general counsel, told my Hearst Newspapers’ colleague Diego Mendoza-Moyers. “I know that I’m asking people to trust me. I am doing this because it is in the best interest of our customers.”
MAKING ENDS MEET: Deadly winter storm adds another layer of woe for struggling Houston workers
Confidential settlements, though, allow companies to hide bad behavior.
My fourth column in this series will examine how Texas regulators and lawmakers deflected blame from pipeline operators and protected some of the Republican Party’s largest donors.