Drummond sues natural gas suppliers for fraud connected to 2021 winter storm

State Attorney General Gentner Drummond is going after natural gas marketing and pipeline operating companies that he says reaped billions of dollars in what he calls “ill-gotten” gains, stemming from Winter Storm Uri in 2021.

Drummond says the basic scheme by two companies - Enable entities (ET Gathering & Processing successor by merger to Enable Midstream Partners, Enable Oklahoma Intrastate Transmission, Enable Gas Transmission and Enable Energy Resources) and Symmetry Energy Solutions LLC. - was to deliberately and artificially reduce the supply of gas to customers in the days and weeks before the storm, with the knowledge that the storm was likely to produce an extended period of extreme cold temperatures.

Those customers included the state’s biggest public utility, the Grand River Dam Authority.

Drummond says that resulted in natural gas prices that were many times higher than what they should have been.

He calls it fraud on a “staggering” level.

His lawsuit against Enable and Symmetry includes claims of fraud, as well as breach of contract, civil conspiracy, unjust enrichment, and more.

He adds there could be more lawsuits coming for other companies that he says unfairly manipulated natural gas prices.

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