(Bloomberg) – Kinder Morgan Inc. emerged as one of the biggest winners of the historic winter storm that paralyzed Texas after the pipeline operator capitalized on rising demand and energy prices amid deadly frost.
The storm in mid-February had a positive $ 1 billion impact on first-quarter results, President Kimberly Dang said during a conference call with investors on Wednesday. Kinder revealed a $ 116 million gain from the voluntary reduction in electricity consumption during the disaster, which means a $ 880 million reduction in gas sales.
A Kinder Morgan spokesman declined to comment on the figures.
Lone Star’s state-owned electricity and utilities lost billions of dollars when the Arctic explosion disrupted the power grid and cut off gas supplies, driving prices to unprecedented levels. On the other hand, the Kinder market and drilling, such as Comstock Resources Inc., made fat profits.
“Our storage assets have performed exceptionally well, allowing us to deliver gas to the market throughout the storm,” said CEO Steve Kean. “These storage withdrawals, along with the gas we bought before and during the event, allowed us to deliver significant volumes of gas at contractual or prevailing prices.”
Much of the extra gas sold by Kinder went to power generators whose normal suppliers were shut down or shut down as the catastrophe intensified, Kean said.
Kinder’s first-quarter net income reached a record $ 1.41 billion, more than double the $ 550 million average of analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Shares rose 3.8% in after-hours trading in New York.
(Updates with details on earnings in the second paragraph.)
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