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For two weeks in February 2021, brutal winter storms caused Texans to be left without power for days on end.

Let’s take a close look at what happened to the gas supply and demand in Texas on February 15, when the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) issued a level-three Emergency Energy Alert.

During the crisis, the cold weather hurt all power-generation sources, with the most significant gap coming from coal and gas facilities.

Using February 7 as a baseline, the normal gas supply in Texas is coming from production (49%), imports (13%), storage withdrawals (38%).

On February 15, because of production freeze-off (-20%), import bottlenecks (-9%), storage freeze-offs (-27%), the gas supply in Texas fell by ~56%.

Next, let’s focus on gas demand in Texas on February 15.

Nonessential liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports in Texas were cut first, with feed gas dropping by ~75% from February 7 to February 15, followed by net exports to other states.

Mexico exports were cut by one-third, even before the governor of Texas ordered cuts to exports.

Industrial activity dropped by ~40%, while residential and commercial customers, typically triaged first for gas service, were cut by ~50%.

Facing both freeze-offs and a decline in fuel supply, gas power generation dropped ~40%.

Finally, the total gas demand on February 15 was 16 bcfd. Even if all power generation facilities had been weatherized, Texas supply was likely 6 bcfd short of demand needs.

Our analysis shows that even if all power-generation facilities were fully operation, they would not have been able to source enough gas without further cuts to residential and commercial power.

Thus, additional questions should be asked about gas supply and not just the power grid.