Millions of Texas residents remain without power amid historic winter weather

Millions in Texas shivered through power outages for a third day Wednesday as the deadly storm that brought snow and ice to the region wreaked havoc to the state’s energy infrastructure.

An estimated 3 million barrels per day of oil production remained offline. Power production from natural gas, coal, renewables and other sources has been impacted as consumers turn up their thermostats amid the frigid temperatures.

“A significant amount of capacity remains offline,” noted Morris Greenberg, senior manager at S&P Global Platts Analytics.

West Texas Intermediate crude futures prices rose as much as 2% to trade at $61.25 per barrel, the U.S. benchmark’s highest level in more than a year. During mid-morning trading the contract eased off that level, trading at $60.26. International benchmark Brent crude traded slightly higher at $63.66 per barrel. Gasoline futures were up 0.7%, bringing the gain since Friday to more than 8%. Natural gas edged higher, after jumping more than 7% on Tuesday. Since Friday it’s up more than 9%.

With “oil wells and refineries offline, we could be facing a significant shortfall for a number of days, further tightening supply at a time when it has already been restricted and demand is expected to return,” wrote Craig Erlam senior market analyst at Oanda.

Wholesale power prices in Texas have surged as contractual obligations forced companies to buy at any price. And some of the heightened cost could end up on Texas consumers’ utility bills. Companies such as Griddy — which gives consumers access to wholesale electricity prices — have outlined ways for its users to switch power providers in an effort to shield them from volatile price swings.

“Real-time power prices in Texas hit the $9,000/[megawatt hour] mark multiple times across the state, with day-ahead on-peak prices averaging more than $7,000/MWh in all four zones in the Electric Reliability Council of Texas region,” Citi analysts wrote in a note. The normal price would be around $70/MWh.

The outages raised questions about the stability of the electric grid, pushing some members of Congress to call for hearings on why the system failed.

“Ultimately, those responsible for the operation and management of our energy grid will have to answer for the glaring collapse of our energy infrastructure and inadequate communication to the public,” Rep. Van Taylor, R-Texas, said in a statement.

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[kennetholiver]

What about the people who have had over 30 hours of no power. I would call this a total blackout. Come up with another excuse, for your mess ups.

[Nikaleigh]

My son's snake and fish died by freezing to death. Hard, cruel lesson for a ten year old. Our dog and tortoise are okay thank goodness. At least we aren't frozen to death...yet. No water, and grocery stores are picked clean. This is crazy.

[elishiamalone]

Lord please help these people to get the lights back on. This isn't right.

[keithtiger]

ERCOT needs to take responsibility for their inept response.

[reggieangus]

So anyone want to guess how many ERCOT board members have electricity on in their nice warm homes?

[TheMrgoodmanners]

it just took 3days for texas to go back to the stone age.

[cheetahz]

The rolling outages is total bs. My power has been off the entire time while I know people who hasn't lost power at all. Should be called just certain people outages.

[rebeccaparmley]

Praying for my son whose without insulin and no electric for three days.

[troysierra]

No breaks on your Texas electric bill at the end of month. You still have to pay for your misery!

[joshduran]

I’ve been without power for over 40 hours. My apartment dropped below 32 degrees after last nights snow storm

[kennetholiver]

There were a lot of office buildings in downtown, that lights blazing. Did they open their doors to help people without power to stay warm? Very few had backup generators.

[mrskywalker]

Damn these events (Pandemic and natural disasters) are really showing us how fragile and unprepared our nation is. We need to do better America..

[randyfourtyeight]

Perhaps Texas should have built up their electrical grid instead of a wall. Vote Blue

[stevenklinkhamer]

Looking more and more like a catastrophic failure. One can't help but feel for all the people suffering through this-some who have even lost their lives. Terrible.

[amfentre]

There was a guy on twitter saying this would happen back in 2011 but they kicked him off

[jessemtz]

Millions of dollars this millions of texas residents produce every month.and the best thing ercot thinks to do is shut off the energy to part of the paying residents.while others still enjoy a cozy home. I bet your homes were not afected

[mayram]

DOWNTOWN TEXAS HAS POWER- what about giving this power to people homes! THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS

[robmoneylife]

I honestly don't mind sleeping in the cold but not being able to charge my phone is a deal breaker

[darkpower]

Texas:"18 hours without energy while cold" this is hell!

Puerto rico:"During a hurricane being without energy for a month" so your new to this?

[Bigdogspyke]

Texas: we are strong enough to secede from the US

Also Texas: *4 inches of snow* “HELP ME”