Former Western Gas Trading Manager Sued

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) April 14, 2005 -- Former Western Gas Trading Manager Sued

By Associated Press

April 13, 2005, 3:32 PM EDT

DENVER -- A former Western Gas Resources Inc. trading manager has been sued in federal court by government regulators who say he manipulated natural-gas prices for his own profit.

The U.S. Commodities Futures Trading Commission lawsuit, filed Tuesday, alleges that Andrew Richmond pressured his traders to report false information from Western Gas' gas transactions to an industry-pricing index service between April 2000 and February 2001.

Richmond and Denver-based Western Gas allegedly profited by increasing the spread between gas prices at two delivery locations. Gas could then be purchased at the lower-priced location, transported to the higher-priced location and sold there for greater profit.

Western Gas paid the commission $7 million last year to settle charges of false gas-price reporting. The company admitted no wrongdoing.

Western Gas chief executive Peter Dea said Richmond left his position as director of marketing at the company last year. He now works in the marketing department of Optigas Inc., a Denver natural gas company. Optigas chief executive Michael Quigley said Richmond is not engaged in trading but that he does buy and sell natural gas with "back-to-back" contracts.

Richmond did not return calls Tuesday or Wednesday.

The commission is seeking between $110,000 and $120,000 for each of Richmond's alleged violations of the Commodity Exchange Act, or triple his monetary gain from each violation.