The Financial Oversight and Management Board said Wednesday that a weeks-long LNG delivery delay forced Puerto Rico to burn more expensive diesel, at an estimated cost of about $32 million, and that it supports the Electric Power Authority in enforcing its fuel contract with NF Energía.
In a statement dated Oct. 21, the Board said PREPA estimates the LNG delivery delay cost “the people and businesses of Puerto Rico” roughly $32 million between Sept. 16 and Oct. 12. Diesel replaced the gas at the power plants that depend on it.
The Board said the contract between PREPA and NF Energía LLC, which it approved and which has been in effect since December 2025, is supposed to guarantee that Puerto Rico receives the LNG it needs. It said it supports PREPA and the Public-Private Partnerships Authority, known as P3A, in their efforts to enforce the agreement. The statement does not include NF Energía’s position on the dispute.
What the contract says about a missed delivery
The center of the statement is a tolling provision. According to the Board, the contract requires NF Energía to let a third-party supplier deliver LNG through the company’s port facilities whenever NF Energía fails to supply it. In that case NF Energía must enter into an agreement with the outside supplier under a document called the LNG Tolling Term Sheet.
The Board called the term sheet “a fundamental part of the contract” and a critical condition of its approval. It said the purpose was to make sure Puerto Rico is never left without LNG “regardless of which party, if any, is at fault,” and that all parties agreed to the condition. The provisions, it said, “must be honored every time NFE fails to deliver.”
The statement refers to a dispute between the parties over failed deliveries. It does not say whether a third-party delivery was requested during the September and October interruption, and it does not cite a court or regulatory filing.
What the LNG delivery delay means for customers
Fuel and purchased-power costs are passed through to customer bills, but the statement does not say whether any of the $32 million will be. Separately, LUMA told the Energy Bureau that September fuel costs ran $54.4 million over what customers were billed. That filing blames higher fuel prices and generation outages. The two figures cover different periods and come from different sources, and neither document links them.
The Board said it will work with the Government of Puerto Rico to convene the relevant stakeholders to coordinate on preventing future interruptions in LNG deliveries. It added that this effort is without prejudice to PREPA enforcing its rights under the contract.
For Condado and the rest of San Juan, where much of the electricity comes from gas-fired plants, the practical question is whether the cost of the LNG delivery delay lands on bills and whether the tolling provision gets used the next time a delivery fails. We will follow the Energy Bureau docket and PREPA’s enforcement steps.
Related coverage: NFEnergía Skips House Hearing as Energy Bureau Chief Presses to Pull 3PPO From Temporary-Power Buying
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Sources: Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico, statement on the LNG contract dispute, Oct. 21, 2026; Puerto Rico Energy Bureau docket NEPR-MI-2020-0001.
Image: AI-generated illustration.
