Firm means firm.

A behind-the-meter power contract is only as good as the gas contract underneath it. "Firm" is the word that carries the weight: a firm gas supply agreement obligates the supplier to deliver contracted volumes, with remedies if it doesn't — as opposed to interruptible arrangements the seller can curtail when it suits them. Evaluating one comes down to five questions: what firm means in this contract, how it prices, whether the molecules can physically arrive, who stands behind the promise, and whether the gas term matches the power term.

What firm actually means

Firm is a contractual standard, not an adjective. It means the supplier has a binding obligation to deliver the contracted quantity, backed by remedies — not a right to walk away when spot prices spike or supply tightens. Read the exceptions carefully: force majeure definitions, curtailment rights, and performance carve-outs are where a firm contract quietly becomes a best-efforts one. Ask for the delivery obligation, the exceptions, and the remedies on one page; if that summary is hard to produce, the contract is softer than advertised.

Term and pricing structure

Term and price answer different risks. The term should be long enough to cover the power commitment it supports. Pricing can be fixed, indexed to a hub, or hybrid — each allocates commodity risk differently, and the right answer depends on how the power contract passes fuel costs through. What diligence tests is coherence: a long firm power obligation resting on short or repricing gas is a mismatch someone will eventually pay for, and repricing risk hiding in the later years of a long deal is a diligence miss, not a market surprise. Cheap regional gas helps too — the Waha story is why West Texas fuel economics are distinctive.

Physical deliverability

A contract can be firm on paper and fragile in steel. Trace the physical path: gathering from the wellheads, treating to remove what the machines can't burn, compression, and the redundancy of routes to the site. Single-path supply is a single point of failure regardless of what the contract says. Walk the route on a map, then walk the contracts that govern each segment. The strongest position is supply contracted at the source with short, controlled infrastructure to the plant — geography as risk mitigation.

Counterparty and alignment

A firm obligation from a supplier who can't perform — operationally or financially — is worth its remedies and nothing more. Assess the supplier's production base, its operating record, and its credit, the same way a lender would. Then check the last alignment: the gas term against the power term, volumes against plant consumption at full load, and remedies in the gas contract against liabilities in the power contract. When the two stacks mirror each other, the structure holds. Gas diligence is one pillar of the broader exercise in evaluating a BTM provider.

About Corley Energy

Corley Energy is a behind-the-meter independent power producer, founded in 2024 by Jake Corley, Tim Bozeman, and Mark Meyer. We convert stranded Permian Basin natural gas into firm, contracted electricity for AI data centers at Power Foundry, our ~1,000-acre development in Upton County, Texas. Start with what a power foundry is, see the company facts, or check current capacity on the Sites page.

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