More than two years after it received an astronomical bill for natural gas, the Hot Springs Advertising and Promotion Commission continues to pursue a price-gouging complaint against Symmetry Energy Solutions.
The ad commission filed the complaint with former Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge's office in April 2021, after being charged $233,681.94 for natural gas usage in February 2021 at the Hot Springs Convention Center. Up to that point, the highest monthly bill it had ever received was $13,848.
As a large natural gas consumer, the ad commission opted in 2010 to purchase its natural gas from a third-party seller, which is not regulated by the Arkansas Public Service Commission. It initially entered into a Large Volume Customer Agreement with Seminole Energy Services in April of 2010, which, through several acquisitions over the years, had since become Symmetry.
The commission received the bill at the end of March 2021, one month after record-cold temperatures gripped the region. The convention center staff had said it was unaware of the large bill the 360,000-square-foot facility incurred until the following month.
"The unfortunate situation across the street was Symmetry had old information," City Attorney Brian Albright told the Hot Springs Board of Directors last summer when it considered extending its bulk natural gas contract with the Houston supplier. The city uses natural gas at the animal services building and in part of its adjacent wastewater operation.
"They were sending notifications to the employee who used to handle that after he was no longer employed at the convention center," Albright told the board, which subsequently voted to remove the ordinance extending the 2012 contract with Symmetry Energy Solutions from the agenda of its July 19 business meeting. An ordinance the board unanimously adopted at its Sept. 6 business meeting approved an agreement with Pro Energy Partners LLC of Houston to provide bulk natural gas, instead.
It has denied the price-gouging allegations, telling us nearly two years ago that they were "unfounded and reflect a misunderstanding of how the natural gas markets work."
A Symmetry spokesman told us at the time that the winter storm had "severely disrupted natural gas supplies at the very same time that demand was very high because of the record-setting frigid temperatures." The high demand, "coupled with severely limited supply caused the market price of natural gas to rise to unprecedented levels."
Symmetry is not a natural gas producer. It purchases gas from producers and other suppliers. Those costs get pushed along to its customers.
The commission paid the Symmetry bill under protest. No money has ever been refunded or credited to the convention center account.
That hasn't deterred the commission from continuing to pursue its complaint, which has seemingly languished for the past two years.
Steve Arrison, the CEO of Visit Hot Springs, the convention and visitors bureau operated by the commission, wrote Tim Griffin, the newly elected attorney general, in January, to bring the as-yet unsettled complaint to his attention.
Arrison explained in the letter that he is periodically asked by his commissioners, and the media, about the complaint, "and I do not have an answer."
Well, he finally got one earlier this month.
Chuck Harder, the deputy attorney general in charge of the Public Protection Division, got in touch with Arrison a couple of weeks ago, according to an email from Arrison.
"He told me they are still investigating it and the matter is far from over," Arrison said.
Arrison was cautioned not to expect quick action, but received assurances, he said, that "the issue is not dead."