Australia's Macquarie reaps windfall profits from U.S. winter freeze [View all]
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Macquarie Group earned big profits off the winter storms sweeping across Texas and other U.S. states, with the gains from its trading operations single-handedly changing the Australian bank’s outlook for the year.
The company is the second-largest gas marketer in North America behind oil major BP, and the week of big trading revenue has by itself boosted the bank’s overall profit outlook for the year by 10%.
The windfall comes after nearly a week of frigid temperatures that knocked out power for millions of people in the United States, particularly in Texas, forcing many to spend several nights without heat or electricity.
Some consumers are facing exorbitant utility bills in coming months as a result of Texas’s largely unregulated system. The deadly winter storm meant electricity generators had to compete for natural gas supplies, pushing up prices sharply in the deregulated market.
Real-time natural gas prices surged more than 300 times during the storms, with power prices reaching $8,800 per megawatt-hour in some parts of Texas, compared with an average of roughly $26 per MWh.
Macquarie on Monday said it expects fiscal 2021 profits to jump by as much as 10% after warning just two weeks ago that earnings would be “slightly down.”
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-macquarie-group-outlook/australias-macquarie-reaps-windfall-profits-from-u-s-winter-freeze-idUSKBN2AM01O?il=0
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