September 30, 2021

An update for GFU Customers regarding gas pricing:

In May of this year the GFU Board of Trustees and the Grey Forest City council voted to obtain a bond in the amount of approximately $22 Million to be repaid over an 8-year period to secure eventual payments that may be due to Koch Energy Services for gas supplied to the utility during the winter storm that occurred during the month of February 2021. This would allow GFU to spread out any amounts owed to us by our customers over a long period of time.

Grey Forest Utilities continues to seek a detailed explanation from the energy supplier for the excessive natural gas prices that occurred. To that end we have followed our contract with this supplier, and we have disputed the amounts of the billing that we believe is excessive in accordance with the term of the contract. Koch has not provided the information requested but has requested that we enter mediation with them to resolve the disputed bill. We have maintained that we require the information that we have requested prior to deciding regarding mediation.

Until the matter is resolved either by negotiation, mediation, or litigation the Trustees determined that billing would begin for this gas effective with the billing for September 2021 gas delivered to our customers. Therefore, to secure the annual repayment of the bond an amount of $14.55 will be added to the cost of gas monthly until the matter is resolved. If the matter is resolved in GFU’s favor and a lower amount is determined to be owed for the gas in question our customers will be refunded for any amounts that they have paid that is more than what was determined to be owed.

We appreciate your support in dealing with this matter.

Jeff English

CEO & General Manager
Grey Forest Utilities

An Update to Grey Forest Customers about your bills from us and the February 2021 Winter Storm:

On May 3, 2021 GFU issued a formal contractual dispute over the invoice GFU received from our gas supplier who supplied gas to us in the February winter storm. This supplier, Koch Energy Services, provided us with an invoice on March 10, 2021 in the amount of $23 Million for purchases during the winter storm.

Our normal February purchase of gas would be approximately $540,000. Because of the extreme cold weather, the bill should have been about $1,047,000.  The bill certainly should not have been $23 Million. What this means to you as a customer is that we are suspending recovery from you for the February storm cost until such time as this billing dispute is resolved and an accurate invoice from the supplier is received.

Our dispute with Koch Energy Services is over a factually inaccurate invoice. After thorough research into their activities during the storm event we believe the invoice to GFU is inaccurate specifically in pricing and in the amounts of gas GFU purchased from them during a key 8 day stretch during the storm period.

In accordance with our contract, we are suspending further payments to Koch Energy Services until these matters are resolved. As we have said in previous updates, when this matter is finally resolved, we will refund to our customers any over-payment they may have made for February 2021 gas purchases.

We will provide further updates as more information becomes available. We appreciate your continued support, and we appreciate the trust you place in Grey Forest Utilities as your gas supplier.

Jeff English

Grey Forest Utilities

March 3, 2021

A note to GFU Customers:

During the winter storm event that prevailed in the 3^rd week of February 2021, I am proud to report that not a single customer lost natural gas service from Grey Forest Utilities. We serve almost 17,000 customers mainly in the NW San Antonio metro area. We know that many of you were without electric power and some of you were without power and water for several days.

GFU was limited on pressure from our pipeline supplier so that the pipeline could utilize that pressure to support power generators who were trying to supply power to homes and businesses that were going through power outages statewide. Our technicians worked several long days and nights to assure that pressure was sufficient to supply your homes; sometimes manually managing the pressure in certain areas to assure everyone had natural gas available. In our supply and pressure planning we plan for the worst possible scenario and this storm seems to have been about the worst we can expect. We need to keep in mind that it could have lasted even longer than it did and everyone would have suffered exponentially.  We are all blessed that it did not.  I am proud of our team and how they performed.

Lots of blame is being thrown around right now. Investigations have started to look into why your power was limited and why electric and gas prices appeared to have mysteriously skyrocketed overnight and continued for a period of about 8 days to support emergency generation for the electricity utilities. There is little doubt that, with the encouragement of the Texas Public Utility Commission and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) power generators were authorized to increase their power prices and to utilize tight natural gas supplies to provide additional supplies of energy. This move appears to have effectively given a blank check to power and gas producers to charge exorbitant prices during a statewide emergency. If the investigations “follow the money” maybe those responsible will be held accountable. We are going to proactively assist these investigations in every way possible. Meanwhile, we must continue to supply you with gas and at the same time, we must react to what we are being billed by those who supply us with the natural gas that we deliver to you.

Local Natural Gas Distribution companies like Grey Forest Utilities, can expect to be hit with unprecedented high prices for the natural gas that we bought and provided to our customers.  We are going to spread the higher-than-normal cost out over a long period of time to lessen the impact to our customers. You will see an increase in your February bills, they will be higher, and your bills will remain higher than normal until those prices are revised or until we have finished paying our suppliers for the natural gas we all used to stay warm.

This is our promise to you……If we are successful in obtaining favorable relief and mitigation on those storm prices after the fact, we will credit back to our customers any increases that we may have passed through to you. This seems to be the fairest way to respond to this situation and I think if you consider the circumstances you will agree with the way we have chosen to respond on behalf of our customers.

Last but not least, we appreciate your business and your support and understanding as we navigate a difficult time. If we can assist you in any way please let us know.

William J English

CEO & General Manager

Grey Forest Customers:

As you all know, our service area experienced unprecedented and historic cold weather that brought subfreezing temperatures ice and snow. Many of us were without power for an extended period of time. Some of us were without power and water. However, I’m pleased to say that none of you were without natural gas. Grey Forest employees and technicians many of whom were experiencing the same situations at their homes were working as hard as possible through the emergency conditions to ensure that everyone got gas and could use it for heating and cooking purposes where it was possible.

During the winter weather emergency, Power Utilities scrambled to acquire as much natural gas as possible to generate electricity statewide. The scramble by the power companies for additional gas for power generation across the state combined with the normal demand for gas from gas customers in a colder than normal span of time caused unusual short-term demand on short supplies of natural gas and gas pressure in the pipelines that serve our region. As a result of the demand for short supplies of gas, the price of gas is going to be high for the approximate period of February 13th through the 19th of February. For those who have called or emailed us, we don’t know what the final average price for the month of February 2021 is going to be. We will not know until the month ends.

We are working now to find out what resources are available from State and Federal agencies to lower the higher prices that will impact our customers. Information on that is very limited from State and Federal officials at this time. A disaster has been declared but nobody is telling anyone how that translates into help for our consumers. While those agencies sort that out, we are already working with our suppliers of the gas that was delivered to our customers to seek ways to mitigate those prices and to lessen the immediate impact on our customers. I ask that you please be patient and work with us as we move forward. We appreciate your business and consider it to be an honor to be your gas supplier.  

Please check back in this area —because I will add updated information when I have it available.

Thank You

Jeff English

General Manager

GFU

23 February 2021

Operations during COVID-19

At GFU  your health and safety is our priority.

GFU will be here for you as the COVID-19 virus impacts our daily life.

You will see our employees in our service areas.  They will be practicing “social distancing”, while providing the support and service you depend on.

We are  limiting access to our office building.  All other services will be available, we will be operating as normally as possible.

Emergency phone calls will be answered 24/7 at 210-695-8781.

Some of our employees will be working remotely to answer your non-emergency call.  When calling

210-695-8781 you will be asked to press one for a gas or water emergency.

For non-emergency calls you will be prompted to press two or zero to leave a voice mail and our customer service representatives will return your call as soon as possible between 8:30AM and 4:30PM.

Customer Service will be responding to emails sent to billing@gfugas.com between 8:30 AM and 4:30 PM.