Numbers show Reliant Energy turned hefty first quarter earnings during the time when gas prices were sky high. And that's not sitting too well with many Reliant customers who are still dealing with high gas bills.
A love for fellowship brings people together everyday at the Myrtle Pickering Senior Center in Shreveport. Something else these older citizens share in common are high natural gas prices they've had to pay over past few months. Ina Johnson's highest bill was more than $400.
Ina Johnson, Reliant Energy Customer: "I'm 63 years old and I've lived here all my life. I've never had a gas bill like that. Never."
While gas prices climbed during the first of the year, so did profits at Reliant Energy. First quarter earnings totaled $274 million dollars. That's more than double the earnings from the same period last year and has some Reliant customers thinking it came at their expense.
Ina Johnson, Reliant Energy Customer: "They had to make so much the way they are charging this year. It's never been like that before and I don't understand it at all."
Durwood Nails, Reliant Customer: "Wouldn't it make you angry if someone was extorting from you? that's what i think it is."
Reliant says higher natural gas prices had nothing to do with it's jump in earnings. One investment analyst, who studies companies like Reliant, agrees.
Tommy Williams, Investment Analyst: "Companies that are well managed like Reliant that are into the transmission and marketing of natural gas certainly have a way of participating in a boom but the high gas prices that people see in their homes, on their home utility bills, that money does not trickle down to Reliant Energy."
Williams says it's gas producers who make the profits from high prices, not distributors like Reliant.
Tommy Williams, Investment Analyst: "If they play a part, it's a very, very minimal part in the growth of Reliant Energy. They're just a well run company in the right place in the right time."
Still, given the emotion stirred by the sting of high winter gas prices, the news of Reliant's profits couldn't come at a worse time for many who are still trying to pay off their gas bills.
Reliant says the bulk of it's first quarter earnings came from extorting wholesale energy to other providers in places like California. The company says any profits it made from its natural gas sales to homes and businesses came from an increased use of gas due to the colder weather.