Customers of ten Texas and Oklahoma gas utilities are paying off Winter Storm Uri's gas costs until as late as {{ok_last_year}}: ${{lo_month}} to ${{hi_month}} a month for a home, and over a third of the total is interest
In February 2021, during Winter Storm Uri, the price utilities paid for gas jumped; the Oklahoma Corporation Commission's order for one utility describes "{{q_100x}}". Passed on at once, the costs would have pushed monthly home bills "{{q_1000}}", the Commission found for Oklahoma Natural Gas. Instead, under laws both states passed in 2021, the costs were financed with bonds, which spread them over many years of bills, with interest, rather than one winter's. Customers of eight Texas utilities and of Oklahoma Natural Gas and Summit Utilities in Oklahoma repay them through a charge on their gas bills. ${{to_util_bn}} billion went to the utilities; customers repay ${{repay_bn}} billion, ${{int_bn}} billion of it interest. ${{paid_bn}} billion has been paid and ${{left_bn}} billion is still to come.
{{charges_asof}}
{{takeaways}}What is left to repay
Three bond issues carry the costs: one in Texas, for eight utilities, and one for each of the two Oklahoma gas utilities that took part. Each has a fixed schedule of payments, set when it was sold. The chart adds them up: what customers' charges still have to pay, month by month, as scheduled.
{{hero}}Scheduled, not measured: the line is the bonds' own payment schedules, less what Texas paid at the start from the bond proceeds (see Method). Texas's balance matched its schedule to the dollar at the end of 2025 (the issuer's report), and Summit's after its October 2026 payment (its servicer's certificate).
What was financed
| Bonds | Sold | Principal | To the utilities | Interest | Customers repay | Last payment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Texas Natural Gas Securitization Finance Corporation, eight utilities | {{tx_closing}} | ${{tx_principal}} | ${{tx_to_util}} | ${{tx_interest}} | ${{tx_repay}} | {{tx_last}} |
| Oklahoma Development Finance Authority, Oklahoma Natural Gas | {{ong_closing}} | ${{ong_principal}} | ${{ong_to_util}} | ${{ong_interest}} | ${{ong_repay}} | {{ong_last}} |
| Oklahoma Development Finance Authority, Summit Utilities Oklahoma | {{suo_closing}} | ${{suo_principal}} | ${{suo_to_util}} | ${{suo_interest}} | ${{suo_repay}} | {{suo_last}} |
Millions of dollars. To the utilities is the costs each commission approved, including carrying costs (the interest the utilities paid while they waited for the bonds); the rest of the principal paid for issuing the bonds, their reserves and, in Texas, the first interest payment. Texas's interest rates are {{tx_coupons}}; Oklahoma Natural Gas's average {{ong_coupon}} and Summit's {{suo_coupon}}.
{{split}}In Texas, the Railroad Commission approved ${{tx_to_util_bn}} billion for eight gas utilities, named as the bond document names them: {{tx_all}}. Part of CenterPoint's share belongs to Summit Utilities, which bought some of its Texas system after the costs were set and collects the charge there; Summit's Oklahoma business, below, was CenterPoint's too. In Oklahoma, the Corporation Commission approved Oklahoma Natural Gas's gas costs "{{q_ong_dates}}", ${{ong_extreme_m}} million of them, and Summit's, filed when it was still CenterPoint Energy's Oklahoma business, "{{q_suo_dates}}", ${{suo_extreme_m}} million; carrying costs and other approved costs are added to each. The Texas issuer's official statement, written to sell the bonds, gives the background in its own words: "{{q_tx_cause}}"
While the Texas bonds were being sold, two bills were filed in the Texas Legislature, {{tx_bills}}, each proposing that the state pay the charges on customers' behalf. Customers still pay them: the charge has been on bills since October 2023, and it is in the tariffs filed for October 2026.
Who pays, and how
In Texas the law sets one charge for everyone: "{{q_tx_uniform}}" of the participating utilities. Future customers pay it too, whether or not they lived there in 2021. It is charged per unit of gas, inside the gas-cost line of the bill, to the utilities' sales customers, the ones who buy their gas from the utility, and it is reset at least once a year so that collections meet the payments: {{tx_steps}}. Customers who buy their gas elsewhere and pay the utility only to deliver it are not charged. One division's tariff on file differs: Atmos Energy's West Texas division shows ${{tx_wt}} per hundred cubic feet from June 2026, almost twice the others. Its filing does not say why, and this page has not found out.
In Oklahoma the charge is a flat amount on each monthly bill, the same in a cold month as a mild one, and each class of customer carries a share set, in both of the Commission's orders, "{{q_alloc}}". Those shares can be reset; Oklahoma Natural Gas's have been ({{ong_a_alloc0}} of the total for its smaller-use homes at issue, {{ong_a_alloc1}} in the March 2026 true-up). Both orders leave out customers who were on the utility's voluntary fixed-price plan in February 2021 and customers in the Low Income Heating Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP). Oklahoma Natural Gas divides homes by yearly use, under or over 50 dekatherms, a measure of the gas's heat rather than its volume; Oklahoma's average home used {{ok_mcf}} thousand cubic feet a year over {{tx_y0}} to {{tx_y1}}.
| Oklahoma class, in the filing's own words | Monthly charge |
|---|
Oklahoma Natural Gas from {{ong_from}} (its filed estimate for {{ong_next}} in brackets); Summit from May 2026. The filings name classes by tariff code; the residential rows are homes and the rest are businesses and large users. The two zero rows are classes whose share is zero in the 2026 true-up; the letter does not say why.
Your utility:
Texas, the participating utilities: ${{tx_rate}} per thousand cubic feet since October 2026 on most of their tariffs (the one exception is above). A home using {{tx_mcf}} thousand cubic feet a year, Texas's average over {{tx_y0}} to {{tx_y1}}, pays about ${{tx_month}} a month, averaged over the year, more in a cold month and less in summer: ${{tx_year}} a year. The bond document put the first charge at about {{tx_bill_pct}} per cent of an average home's bill at the large utilities. A home on the system from October 2023 until the bonds are repaid, at the rates filed so far and today's after that, pays about ${{tx_term}} in all, about {{tx_int}} per cent of it interest.
Oklahoma Natural Gas, homes using under 50 dekatherms a year: ${{onga_month}} on each monthly bill from May 2026 (${{onga_next}} is the filed estimate from November 2026; ${{onga_init}} when the charge began), ${{onga_year}} a year. Over the whole term, to 2047, the class's share of what is repaid comes to about ${{onga_term}} for each home, about {{ong_int}} per cent of it interest.
Oklahoma Natural Gas, homes using 50 dekatherms a year or more: ${{ongb_month}} on each monthly bill from May 2026 (${{ongb_next}} is the filed estimate from November 2026; ${{ongb_init}} when the charge began), ${{ongb_year}} a year. Over the whole term, to 2047, the class's share of what is repaid comes to about ${{ongb_term}} for each home, about {{ong_int}} per cent of it interest.
Summit Utilities Oklahoma, homes: ${{suo_month}} on each monthly bill from May 2026 (${{suo_init}} when the charge began), ${{suo_year}} a year. Over the whole term, to 2037, the class's share of what is repaid comes to about ${{suo_term}} for each home, about {{suo_int}} per cent of it interest.
Totals over the term are for a home on the system for all of it, and they are approximations: the charges are reset at least once a year. Interest is a larger part of the early payments, when more is owed, and a smaller part of each payment from now on: {{tx_left_int}} per cent of what is still to come in Texas, {{ok_left_int}} per cent in Oklahoma.
Method
Payments. Texas: the official statement's expected amortization schedule by tranche (A-1 ${{tx_a1}} at {{tx_c1}}, A-2 ${{tx_a2}} at {{tx_c2}}), with interest computed here on the scheduled balance from the closing date, March 23, 2023, on the bonds' 30/360 basis, first paid September 1, 2023 and then each April 1 and October 1. The check: the weighted average lives this gives, {{tx_wal1}} and {{tx_wal2}} years, are the ones the statement prints, and the balance at December 31, 2025 equals the issuer's report to the dollar. Oklahoma: the Issuance Advice Letters' expected sinking fund schedules, row by row; every interest figure in them is reproduced from the coupon and the balance to under a cent. What customers repay: Texas, principal less the reserve, plus interest, less the interest paid from the proceeds; In Texas the first interest payment, ${{tx_prepaid_m}} million on September 1, 2023, was paid from an account funded out of the proceeds, before any charge was billed, and a reserve of ${{tx_reserve_m}} million, also held back from the proceeds, pays the last instalment; customers repay both through the principal, so neither is counted again. The account held six months of interest, about ${{tx_six_m}} million at the coupons, against the ${{tx_prepaid_m}} million the first payment needed; the statement says unused up-front funds reduce the first reset of the charge, so the Texas total may be up to about ${{tx_unused_m}} million lower. Oklahoma, principal plus interest (the reserve funds, ${{ok_reserve_m}} million together, are not netted, since what was opened does not say how they are used; it would change the total by {{ok_reserve_pct}} per cent). Ongoing costs (trustee, servicer, the issuers' expenses), about ${{ongoing_m}} million a year across the three, are paid through the same charges and are not in the totals above.
A home. Texas: the filed rate in each year, from October, then today's to the last bill, times EIA's residential consumption per residential consumer averaged over {{tx_y0}} to {{tx_y1}} ({{tx_mcf}} thousand cubic feet a year; {{tx_y1}} alone was {{tx_mcf_last}}). The charge is stated at a pressure base of {{p_tx}} pounds per square inch and EIA counts gas at {{q_eia_base}}, so the rate is multiplied by {{p_eia}}/{{p_tx}}: ${{tx_rate_eia}} per thousand cubic feet, which is what CenterPoint's tariff states at {{p_eia}} (${{cnp_1473}} per hundred). Texas Gas Service says its average home pays about ${{tgs_avg}} a month at ${{tx_rate}}. Oklahoma: the filings' own mechanism, a class's share of the scheduled payments and the stated ongoing costs, divided by the class's customers when the charge was set. That is the figure the page gives, because it is how the charges are set; counted instead as today's charge times the months of the term, the totals are ${{onga_check}}, ${{ongb_check}} and ${{suo_check}}, different because the charge has been above and below today's. A home's interest share counts the ongoing costs in what is repaid.
Limits
This page adds up what the filings fix. It does not follow the payments on to the sellers of the gas, and it does not weigh bonds against other ways the costs could have been recovered, which the commissions' orders and staff reports do. It covers only the gas utilities' bond issues, and leaves out gas customers of Texas utilities that did not take part, customers who buy their gas from someone else and have it delivered (Texas's charge is on sales customers), the parts of Texas Gas Service's area its tariff excludes, Oklahoma utilities whose rates the Corporation Commission does not set, such as city-owned systems, which a separate law covers, and every class but homes in the totals. Payments are as scheduled; collections can run ahead or behind, and the true-ups catch them up.
The code
Python: the fetch script, recording where and when each file came from; the readers, which read every figure out of the filings; the bond arithmetic; the payload builder; the page generator; and the tests. The archive carries the payload, not the filings. {{zip_kb}} KB.