Kinetik and Energy Transfer have been locked in a $100 million legal battle over an NGL contract dispute dating back to 2021.
The dispute involved EagleClaw Midstream, CR Permian Processing and Energy Transfer affiliate company Lone Star NGL. (Eagle Claw and Altus Midstream merged in 2022, creating Kinetik.)
In May 2021, Lone Star filed a lawsuit in a Houston district court. The petition claimed that EagleClaw had not fulfilled an agreement to sell Lone Star 100% of the Y-grade NGL produced from the first 840 MMcf/d processed at plants in Reeves County, Texas.
The dispute arose after EagleClaw signed an NGL sale agreement with Targa. Lone Star claimed the NGL traffic declined on its line and estimated the value of its losses at $100 million. Lone Star said the decline in traffic meant that the NGLs were being diverted to Targa’s network instead, East Daley Analytics said in an analysis of the lawsuit on July 2.
EagleClaw denied the accusations.
The case spent the next three years in district court. In December 2024, the lawsuit moved to the Texas Business Court, created by the state government in September 2024.
The new court spent little time on the dispute, ruling that the business court did not have jurisdiction over the lawsuit and remanding it back to the district court venue, according to court documents.
The status of the lawsuit is not clear. Energy Transfer did not respond to a request for comment. In an email to Hart Energy, a Kinetik spokeswoman said the company does not comment on pending litigation as a standard practice.
“We are engaged in the legal process and will continue to defend our position as the matter proceeds through the courts,” the statement said.