Gas Pains Spark Lawsuit Between Arkansas Oklahoma Gas, BP

And you thought your gas bill was high.

Arkansas Oklahoma Gas Corp. of Fort Smith last week sued BP Energy Co. of Houston for $34.4 million for not delivering natural gas as required by a contract.

AOG provides natural gas to about 60,000 residential, commercial, industrial and agricultural customers in Arkansas and Oklahoma, according to the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Fort Smith.

AOG said it had a contract requiring BP to provide up to 30,000 MMBtu of natural gas per day at a specific price.

But between Feb. 15 and Feb. 19, the week of the big winter storm, BP didn’t meet that requirement, according to the lawsuit filed by attorneys N. M. Norton, Kyle Wilson and Zachary Trail of Wright Lindsey & Jennings of Little Rock and the law firm of Dorsey & Whitney LLP of Washington. By coming up short on the gas, AOG had to buy the gas from other sources, spending $34.4 million more during the six days in February than it would have under the contract with BP.

Last month, AOG sent BP a bill for $34.4 million, which BP refused to pay, the suit said. Instead, BP sent AOG a notice of force majeure, which is an unforeseeable situation that prevented it from providing the gas as promised.

AOG says BP was supposed to provide the notice of force majeure as soon as possible, not wait more than a month.

AOG is suing BP for breach of contract. As of Thursday morning, BP had not responded to the lawsuit, and it didn’t immediately respond to Whispers for comment.