News 9 OKC: Mammoth Energy Appealing To Federal Government Regarding Payment Over $300 Million
Last night, Mammoth was featured on the airwaves of News 9 Oklahoma. The segment discusses Mammoth still being owed more than $300 million dollars for the hard work done by our employees rebuilding Puerto Rico’s power grid in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in 2017. This is work that has stood the test of time and survived subsequent natural disasters, and yet still Mammoth has not been compensated for its efforts.
The piece includes an interview with Justin Peterson, a member of the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico, who said of our work: “These guys swung into action after Hurricane Maria and they’ve been treated terribly.”
Oklahoma City-based Mammoth Energy is appealing to the federal government for help in getting paid more than $300 million.
This is owed for the extensive work it did in rebuilding Puerto Rico's electric grid in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, which devastated the island in September 2017.
The money is owed by the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) which contracted with Mammoth for more than $1.8 billion in restoration and reconstruction work.
Ultimately, Mammoth completed work totaling approximately $1.3 billion.
"All that work that our people did, our team did," said Mammoth CEO Arty Straehla in an interview last month, "and we still have not been paid. In fact, we have not been paid since May of 2019."
Straehla says, at the time of that last payment. Mammoth was still owed $227 million, and interest has been accruing, at a rate of $3 million per month since, bringing the current total PREPA owes to $340 million.
PREPA declared bankruptcy in July 2017, two months before the hurricane, which meant its contracts with vendors like Mammoth obtained several levels of approval.
"We were actually a post-bankruptcy creditor," acknowledged Straehla, "which gives us administrative rights. We know we'll get paid, it’s a matter of when we get paid."
Straehla says the fact that they haven't been fully paid yet has had negative implications for the company.
"This has been devastating to us," he stated. "You can imagine going that length of time without money and we had to lay off people. We got forced into where it was a matter of surviving and we had to lay off people."
The CEO says when they finished their work in Puerto Rico in the spring of 2019, the company had 2,400 workers, On the day of the interview, he said the number was 842.