Key Takeaways
- Operators of covered Texas gas facilities must complete required weatherization measures and file their annual Weather Emergency Readiness Attestation with the Railroad Commission by December 1. The authorized representative is certifying that those measures were implemented and that the filing is true, correct and complete to the best of the signer’s knowledge, with violations potentially carrying penalties of up to $1 million each.
- Weatherization obligations can extend to critical components on rented or leased equipment, meaning operators may rely on contractors, equipment lessors and field service providers to support their attestations. Operators should confirm who inspected each site and piece of covered equipment, obtain written documentation of the work performed and make sure the filing reflects what crews actually did.
- Contractors and lessors should review provisions addressing winterization responsibilities, stop-work authority, weather delays, backup power and fuel, force majeure, indemnity and insurance. If asked to provide a readiness certification, they should limit it to conditions they actually inspected or verified and preserve dated checklists, work orders, photographs and written sign-offs in case a regulator, insurer or counterparty later questions what happened during a freeze.
Operators of covered Texas gas facilities must file a Weather Emergency Readiness Attestation with the Railroad Commission by December 1. The filing may look routine. The signature is not. The information supporting it may depend on contractors and lessors as much as on the operator’s own employees.
The late-January storm took as much as 2 million barrels a day of U.S. crude production offline at its peak, about 15 percent of national output, according to analysts and traders quoted by Reuters. Energy Aspects put the Permian’s peak loss at roughly 1.5 million barrels a day. Henry Hub spot gas reached $9.03 per million Btu on January 28, 2026, and the U.S. Energy Information Administration recorded a 360 Bcf storage withdrawal for the week ending January 30, 2026, the largest in the history of its weekly storage report.
Texas gas plants and compressor stations logged about two dozen upsets, according to TACenergy analysts reviewing regulatory filings. During the first five days of the 2021 storm, there were more than 200. I wouldn’t give one cause credit for the difference, but the Railroad Commission says it completed more than 7,400 weatherization inspections of natural gas facilities in fiscal 2025.
Winter is coming around again. EIA expects natural gas inventories to begin the heating season 2 percent above the five-year average, with national temperatures about the same as last winter. The Railroad Commission’s October 2 winter notice adds that the State Climatologist expects an unusually strong El Niño, which is most often linked to cool, wet conditions in Texas and has historically meant more snow in northern and western Texas. He cautions that this event may fall outside the historical record.
Full storage helps the price. It does nothing for a frozen valve.
What the Rule Requires
Railroad Commission Rule 3.66 requires operators of covered facilities to make weather emergency preparations and file the attestation by December 1 each year. It applies to gas supply chain facilities on the state’s electricity supply chain map that are designated critical under Rule 3.65. It also covers certain gas pipelines that directly serve power plants and appear on the map.
Rule 3.65 covers a lot of ground. Critical facilities include gas wells producing more than 250 Mcf a day; oil leases producing more than 500 Mcf a day of casinghead gas, subject to an exception for certain enhanced oil recovery projects; gas processing plants; pipelines and associated compressor stations and control centers; underground storage; natural gas liquids transportation and storage; and saltwater disposal facilities and pipelines.
The rule doesn’t prescribe one winterization plan for every facility. The operator must take the steps a reasonably prudent operator would take based on the facility’s type, age, critical components, location and weather data. Operators also have to train the people involved. The filing includes an attachment describing what was done and the weatherization methods used for each type of facility.
Critical status matters when the power goes out. A critical gas supplier that needs electricity is also a critical customer and must give its information to the applicable electric entities. Operators acknowledge critical status with the commission twice each year, on March 1 and September 1. Priority helps, but it isn’t a promise of power. And when the power comes back, the gas still has to be dry, heated and moving.
What the Signature Means
An authorized representative of the operator signs the attestation. Under the penalties prescribed by Texas Natural Resources Code Section 91.143, the signer states that the required measures were implemented, that the information is true, correct and complete to the best of the signer’s knowledge, that the signer has authority to act for the operator, and that the filing was prepared by the signer or under the signer’s supervision and direction.
Violations can carry penalties of up to $1 million each. For pipeline facilities, each day a violation continues is a separate offense.
That makes the records behind the filing important. If a facility fails during a freeze, an insurer, counterparty or regulator may compare the attestation with what actually happened at the site.
The person signing probably didn’t personally inspect every heater, enclosure or leased unit. For an operator with dozens or hundreds of sites, the signer depends on information coming from the field, and the description in the filing needs to match it. If a contractor’s work order says something different from the operator’s attestation, someone is going to have to explain why.
Before signing, I’d want answers to three questions. Who checked each site, and where is the record? Which leased or contracted equipment is covered, and what has the lessor or contractor confirmed in writing? Does the attachment describe what crews actually did, rather than what they were supposed to do? Those are easier to answer before December 1 than after a freeze.
Where Contractors and Lessors Come In
Rule 3.66 includes components on rented or leased equipment in its definition of critical components, so an operator’s weatherization obligations can extend to equipment it doesn’t own.
Third parties can matter in other ways. If the commission finds that a facility had repeated or major weather-related forced stoppages, it can require the operator to hire an outside person with relevant experience, who cannot be an employee or affiliate, to assess its preparations. Stoppage notifications may also identify third-party issues that contributed to an event.
Service companies, equipment lessors and field service providers don’t sign the attestation, but information about their equipment and work may support it. Operators should be asking them questions now.
Contract Checkpoints
Start with leased and rental equipment. Who is responsible for winterizing it? What standard applies? Who documents that the work was done? If an operator asks you to certify that your equipment is winter-ready, read the request carefully. Don’t make a broader representation than the work you actually performed or the condition you actually verified.
Next, look at what happens if weather stops the work. Crews and trucks can’t always operate safely in a hard freeze. The contract should tell you who has stop-work authority, whether standby time is compensable and whether weather delays entitle either party to schedule relief. If it doesn’t, those issues will be harder to sort out once the site shuts down.
Power and fuel matter too. If a site loses grid power, who provides the generators, who fuels them and who pays? EIA reported that U.S. retail diesel averaged $6.29 a gallon in September 2026 and forecast prices above $6 in October. A fuel provision negotiated when diesel was much cheaper may suddenly have real dollars attached to it.
The same goes for force majeure. Under Texas law, the starting point is the language the parties actually agreed to. A clause listing acts of God or severe weather may cover a freeze, or it may not. Notice, causation and mitigation requirements can matter too. Don’t assume “bad weather” ends the analysis.
Check indemnity and insurance for the same reason. If leased equipment freezes, who bears the loss? What if the failure shuts down the site or causes additional damage? Those questions are better answered by the contract than by the parties after the loss.
And keep the records. Dated checklists, inspection logs, work orders, photographs and written sign-offs will be more useful six months later than anyone’s memory of what happened.
What to Watch
December 1 is just over five weeks away. In its December 2025 winter-readiness update, the Railroad Commission said it had inspected 100 percent of Tier One facilities for the new fiscal year and that winter inspections would continue through the end of March. Tier One includes oil and gas leases producing more than 5 million cubic feet of gas a day, gas processing plants, underground storage facilities and natural gas pipelines directly connected to electricity-generation plants.
Weekly EIA storage reports will tell us more about the supply picture. But plenty of gas in storage doesn’t tell you whether the heater on a particular valve works.
Five weeks isn’t enough time to rewrite every master service agreement. It is enough time to figure out where the problems are. If you lease equipment to a gas operator or work on its sites, ask what the operator expects from you. Put in writing what you inspected, what you didn’t and what you can’t verify. If someone asks you to sign a readiness representation, make sure it says no more than you know to be true.
A dated record beats a good memory.
