The world’s fifth-largest integrated oil and gas company has agreed, along with one of its traders, to pay a $3.6 million civil penalty to settle charges of attempted natural gas market manipulation in the U.S.
Bloomberg reports Total Gas & Power North America Inc. and the trader, both based in Houston, were charged with trying to rig monthly gas index prices at four major trading hubs in Texas and other markets in the Southwest, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission says. The agency imposed sanctions including a two-year trading limit during monthly settlement periods.
Total was one of the largest players in the fixed-price gas markets at the time that it attempted to manipulate prices, according to the trading commission’s statement. Its penalty comes as U.S. regulators increase efforts to crack down on market manipulation in energy markets. BP’s facing a $28 million penalty after a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission judge ruled that it had artificially lowered gas prices at a Houston hub in 2008. Barclays is fighting $488 million worth of fines after the same energy commission alleged it had manipulated power trades.
“We have no comment beyond the terms of the order other than we are pleased to have resolved this matter with the CFTC,” Katia Mackintosh, a spokeswoman for Total in Houston, tells Bloomberg.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which in September separately accused Total of manipulating gas markets, said at the time that the company had executed a scheme to manipulate the price of natural gas in the southwestern U.S. between June 2009 and June 2012. Total Gas & Power has traded and marketed natural gas in the U.S. since 1990 and owns 1 billion cubic feet per day of capacity at the Sabine Pass liquefied natural gas terminal in Louisiana, according to the company’s website.
