Customers of ten Texas and Oklahoma gas utilities are paying off Winter Storm Uri's gas costs until as late as 2047: $4 to $8 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 describes1 "increases of as much as 100 times the typical purchase price, or more". Passed on at once, the costs would have pushed monthly home bills "in excess of $1,000", the Commission found for Oklahoma Natural Gas2. Instead, under laws both states passed in 20213, 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. $4.80 billion went to the utilities; customers repay $7.53 billion, $2.67 billion of it interest. $1.37 billion has been paid and $6.17 billion is still to come.

The bond schedules are fixed. The charges are reset by filings at least once a year; this page shows those filed through October 2026 and does not update itself. What is still to come is counted from October 24, 2026.

  1. In Texas the law sets one charge on each unit of gas for everyone who buys gas from the utilities in the program, now $1.13 per thousand cubic feet on most of their tariffs, about $4 a month for an average home; it has been billed since October 2023 and runs until the bonds are repaid, in April 2039.
  2. In Oklahoma it is a flat amount on each monthly bill, billed since late 2022: now $4.87 or $7.84 for an Oklahoma Natural Gas home, depending on whether it uses less or more than 50 dekatherms of gas a year, until 2047, and $5.84 for a Summit home, until 2037.
  3. A home on the system for the whole term pays about $750 in Texas and $970 to $2,440 in Oklahoma, and about a third of that, more for an Oklahoma Natural Gas home, is interest.

What is left to repay

Three bond issues carry the costs4: 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.

$7.5 billion to repay. Oklahoma's two gas bond issues were sold in August 2022 and October 2022, Texas's in March 2023. From then on customers' charges have to cover $7.53 billion. The shaded gap between the lines is the interest still to pay, $2.6 billion; with the $79.4 million Texas paid at the start, $2.7 billion in all.

Still to repay, as scheduledof it, principalinterest012345678$ billion202420262028203020322034203620382040204220442046Texas bonds soldtodayTexas paid offMar 2023
Still to repay, as scheduledof it, principalinterest012345678$ billion20252030203520402045Texas soldtodayTexas doneMar 2023

October 2026: $6.17 billion to go. $1.37 billion has been paid. $1.8 billion of the interest is still to be paid, most of it: the principal is paid down slowly at first, so interest keeps running on a large balance for years.

Still to repay, as scheduledof it, principalinterest012345678$ billion202420262028203020322034203620382040204220442046Texas bonds soldtodayTexas paid offOct 2026
Still to repay, as scheduledof it, principalinterest012345678$ billion20252030203520402045Texas soldtodayTexas doneOct 2026

April 2039: Texas's last payment. Summit's ends in October 2037. What is left after Texas, $0.77 billion, is Oklahoma Natural Gas's.

Still to repay, as scheduledof it, principalinterest012345678$ billion202420262028203020322034203620382040204220442046Texas bonds soldtodayTexas paid offApr 2039
Still to repay, as scheduledof it, principalinterest012345678$ billion20252030203520402045Texas soldtodayTexas doneApr 2039

May 2047: the last of it. Oklahoma Natural Gas's bonds run longest, about twenty-five years from their sale.

Still to repay, as scheduledof it, principalinterest012345678$ billion202420262028203020322034203620382040204220442046Texas bonds soldtodayTexas paid offMay 2047
Still to repay, as scheduledof it, principalinterest012345678$ billion20252030203520402045Texas soldtodayTexas doneMay 2047

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 report5), and Summit's after its October 2026 payment (its servicer's certificate6).

What was financed

BondsSoldPrincipalTo the utilitiesInterestCustomers repayLast payment
Texas Natural Gas Securitization Finance Corporation, eight utilitiesMarch 2023$3,521.8$3,384.8$1,736.2$5,161.0April 2039
Oklahoma Development Finance Authority, Oklahoma Natural GasAugust 2022$1,354.2$1,337.8$897.9$2,252.1May 2047
Oklahoma Development Finance Authority, Summit Utilities OklahomaOctober 2022$81.6$78.1$38.2$119.8October 2037

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 5.102% and 5.169%; Oklahoma Natural Gas's average 4.523% and Summit's 5.269%.

$7.53 billion. What the charges repay across the three issues, as scheduled.

Customers repay, $ billion: 7.53The utilities' storm costs4.80 · 64%Interest2.67 · 35%Issuing the bonds0.06 · 1%
Customers repay, $ billion: 7.53The utilities' storm costs4.80 · 64%Interest2.67 · 35%Issuing the bonds0.06 · 1%

Where it goes. $4.80 billion repays the costs the commissions approved, $2.67 billion is interest, and the rest, $59.8 million, paid for selling the bonds and for the reserves the proceeds funded.

Customers repay, $ billion: 7.53The utilities' storm costs4.80 · 64%Interest2.67 · 35%Issuing the bonds0.06 · 1%
Customers repay, $ billion: 7.53The utilities' storm costs4.80 · 64%Interest2.67 · 35%Issuing the bonds0.06 · 1%

In Texas, the Railroad Commission approved $3.38 billion for eight gas utilities, named as the bond document names them: Atmos Energy $2.02 billion, CenterPoint $1.10 billion, Texas Gas Service $197.4 million, UniGas (Universal Natural Gas) $32.4 million, SiEnergy $18.8 million, EPCOR $11.3 million, Bluebonnet $2.0 million and Corix $0.3 million. 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 "incurred beginning February 11, 2021, and ending February 19, 2021", $1,284.1 million of them, and Summit's, filed when it was still CenterPoint Energy's Oklahoma business, "incurred beginning February 7, 2021, and ending February 21, 2021", $75.7 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: "In February 2021, prolonged frigid temperatures and winter precipitation, along with other weather-related effects of Winter Storm Uri, resulted in a dramatic reduction of natural gas availability and a concurrent surge in energy demand. As a result, gas utilities were forced to pay extraordinarily high prices for natural gas in order to meet demand."

While the Texas bonds were being sold, two bills were filed in the Texas Legislature, Senate Bill 30 on March 2, 2023 and House Bill 500 on March 7, 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: "uniform monthly volumetric customer rate relief charges must be paid by all current and future customers" 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 year7 so that collections meet the payments: $1.10 per thousand cubic feet from October 2023, $1.18 from October 2024, $1.20 from September 2025 and $1.13 from October 2026. 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 $0.2140 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, "based on actual usage during the month of February 2021". Those shares can be reset; Oklahoma Natural Gas's have been (13.84% of the total for its smaller-use homes at issue, 13.15% 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 62 thousand cubic feet a year over 2015 to 2024.

Oklahoma class, in the filing's own wordsMonthly charge
Oklahoma Natural Gas: Tariffs 101 & 101-V Rate Choice A$4.87 ($4.60)
Oklahoma Natural Gas: Tariffs 101 & 101-V Rate Choice B$7.84 ($7.42)
Oklahoma Natural Gas: Tariffs 200 SCI & 200 SCI-V$8.07 ($7.53)
Oklahoma Natural Gas: Tariff 200 LCI$46.05 ($43.41)
Oklahoma Natural Gas: Tariff 291S$694.62 ($671.13)
Oklahoma Natural Gas: Tariff 601S$0.00 ($0.00)
Oklahoma Natural Gas: Tariff 705$0.00 ($0.00)
Summit: Residential$5.84
Summit: GS1$13.11
Summit: CS1$121.40
Summit: LCS$5,832.66

Oklahoma Natural Gas from May 2026 (its filed estimate for November 2026 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-up8; the letter does not say why.

What it costs a home

Texas, the participating utilities: $1.13 per thousand cubic feet since October 2026 on most of their tariffs (the one exception is above). A home using 42 thousand cubic feet a year, Texas's average over 2015 to 2024, pays about $3.99 a month, averaged over the year, more in a cold month and less in summer: $48 a year. The bond document put the first charge at about 5.8 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 $750 in all, about 34 per cent of it interest.

Oklahoma Natural Gas, homes using under 50 dekatherms a year: $4.87 on each monthly bill from May 2026 ($4.60 is the filed estimate from November 2026; $6.33 when the charge began), $58 a year. Over the whole term, to 2047, the class's share of what is repaid comes to about $1,540 for each home, about 40 per cent of it interest.

Oklahoma Natural Gas, homes using 50 dekatherms a year or more: $7.84 on each monthly bill from May 2026 ($7.42 is the filed estimate from November 2026; $10.04 when the charge began), $94 a year. Over the whole term, to 2047, the class's share of what is repaid comes to about $2,440 for each home, about 40 per cent of it interest.

Summit Utilities Oklahoma, homes: $5.84 on each monthly bill from May 2026 ($5.26 when the charge began), $70 a year. Over the whole term, to 2037, the class's share of what is repaid comes to about $970 for each home, about 32 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: 27 per cent of what is still to come in Texas, 35 per cent in Oklahoma.

Method

Payments. Texas: the official statement's expected amortization schedule by tranche (A-1 $1,814.5 million at 5.102%, A-2 $1,707.3 million at 5.169%), 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, 5.958 and 13.424 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 Letters9' 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, $79.4 million on September 1, 2023, was paid from an account funded out of the proceeds, before any charge was billed, and a reserve of $17.6 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 $90.4 million at the coupons, against the $79.4 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 $11 million lower. Oklahoma, principal plus interest (the reserve funds, $7.2 million together, are not netted, since what was opened does not say how they are used; it would change the total by 0.3 per cent). Ongoing costs (trustee, servicer, the issuers' expenses), about $2.5 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 consumer10 averaged over 2015 to 2024 (42 thousand cubic feet a year; 2024 alone was 37.1). The charge is stated at a pressure base of 14.65 pounds per square inch and EIA counts gas at 60 degrees Fahrenheit and 14.73 pounds standard per square inch, so the rate is multiplied by 14.73/14.65: $1.1362 per thousand cubic feet, which is what CenterPoint's tariff states at 14.73 ($0.11362 per hundred). Texas Gas Service says its average home11 pays about $3.96 a month at $1.13. 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 $1,440, $2,320 and $1,040, 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 covers12, 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. 40 KB.

Download source All code

Sources

  1. Oklahoma Corporation Commission, Final Financing Order No. 723435, Cause No. PUD 202100087 (CenterPoint Energy Resources Corp., now Summit Utilities Oklahoma), 10 February 2022.The price rise from February 12, 2021; extreme purchase costs of $75,678,535 incurred February 7 to 21, 2021; allocation by February 2021 usage; the fixed-price and LIHEAP exclusions.
  2. Oklahoma Corporation Commission, Final Financing Order No. 723033, Cause No. PUD 202100079 (Oklahoma Natural Gas Company), 25 January 2022.Bills in excess of $1,000 without the order; extreme purchase costs of $1,284,101,405 incurred February 11 to 19, 2021; allocation by February 2021 usage; the fixed-price and LIHEAP exclusions.
  3. Texas Utilities Code, Chapter 104, Subchapter I (House Bill 1520, 87th Legislature, 2021); Oklahoma Senate Bill 1050 (2021), the February 2021 Regulated Utility Consumer Protection Act, 74 O.S. ss.9070-9081.The securitization laws; s.104.373(a), the uniform monthly volumetric charge on all current and future customers.
  4. Texas Natural Gas Securitization Finance Corporation, Customer Rate Relief Bonds (Winter Storm Uri), Taxable Series 2023, Official Statement, 9 March 2023.Principal, tranches, coupons, the 30/360 basis and payment dates, the expected amortization schedule, the uses of proceeds (including six months of capitalized interest and the reserve), the regulatory asset amounts, the charge at $0.00 through September 2023, SB 30 and HB 500, and the background quoted.
  5. Texas Natural Gas Securitization Finance Corporation, Report of Outstanding Bonds and Estimated Administrative Expenses, prepared 28 January 2026.Balances at 31 December 2025 (A-1 $1,519,264,998; A-2 $1,707,285,000) and the 2026 administrative expense estimate.
  6. Summit Utilities Oklahoma, Servicer's Certificate, Oklahoma Development Finance Authority Ratepayer-Backed Bonds (Summit Utilities Oklahoma) Series 2022, 24 September 2026, as posted by the Oklahoma Corporation Commission.The balance after the October 1, 2026 payment, $67,526,998.31, equal to the expected schedule.
  7. Railroad Commission of Texas, announcement of 4 October 2023; RRC gas tariff reports GSD-1 for Atmos Energy Mid-Tex (6776), CenterPoint Energy Entex (6263) and Atmos Energy West Texas (6931), 20 October 2026; Atmos Energy Mid-Tex tariffs effective 1 July 2025; Texas Gas Service rate schedule CRR.The charge's rates: $1.10 per Mcf from October 2023, $0.1180, $0.120 and $0.113 per Ccf since; $0.11362 at 14.73 psia; sales customers; the West Texas division's filed $0.2140.
  8. Oklahoma Natural Gas Company, WESCR true-up letter and workpapers, 2 March 2026; Summit Utilities Oklahoma, WESCRM true-up letter, 27 March 2026.The charges by class from May 2026, Oklahoma Natural Gas's estimates from November 2026, and its re-set allocation shares.
  9. Oklahoma Natural Gas Company and Oklahoma Development Finance Authority, Issuance Advice Letter, 23 August 2022; Summit Utilities Oklahoma and ODFA, Issuance Advice Letter, October 2022; both filed with the Oklahoma Corporation Commission.Final terms, tranches and coupons, expected sinking fund schedules, issuance and ongoing costs, the reserve subaccounts, the initial charges by class and their workpapers.
  10. U.S. Energy Information Administration, natural gas series for Texas and Oklahoma: residential consumption (N3010TX2, N3010OK2) and number of residential consumers (NA1501_STX_8, NA1501_SOK_8), annual; and Glossary, letter C.Gas used per home in Texas and Oklahoma, 2015 to 2024; and EIA's glossary, "Cubic foot (cf), natural gas": 60 degrees Fahrenheit and 14.73 pounds per square inch.
  11. Texas Gas Service, Securitization (texasgasservice.com/Securitization), read 24 October 2026.$1.13 per Mcf and about $3.96 a month for the average residential customer.
  12. Oklahoma Senate Bill 1049 (2021), the February 2021 Unregulated Utility Consumer Protection Act.The separate provision for utilities whose rates the Commission does not set.