A Tulsa, OK-based pipeline construction firm and a company general manager pleaded guilty last week in a Denver federal court to charges that they rigged the bids that they submitted to BP America Production Co. to construct natural gas pipelines in the Upper San Juan Basin in Colorado.

The plea agreements with Flint Energy Services Inc. and Kenneth L. Rains, general manager and head of Flint’s Farmington, NM office, stem from an ongoing federal investigation into bidding practices of the pipeline construction company, which is being handled by the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division in Chicago. Both Flint Energy and Rains have agreed to assist the government with its probe.

Rains and R. Ryan Stoll on behalf of Flint Energy appeared in U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado last Monday to plead guilty to the felony charges. For violating the Sherman Antitrust Act, authorities said they will recommend that Rains be sentenced to up to six months in a federal minimum security camp and be fined $10,000. Flint Energy has repaid BP America the full $672,036 that the company was awarded under at least four contracts. Authorities said they will recommend a $100,000 penalty for Flint Energy.

The sentencing hearing for Flint Energy is scheduled for Oct. 30. Rains is expected to be sentenced on Jan. 8, 2007.

Rains copped to the charge that he participated in a “conspiracy to suppress and eliminate competition by submitting noncompetitive and rigged bids from the Farmington, NM, regional office of Flint Energy Services Inc. to BP America Production Co. for the construction of pipelines to transport natural gas from wells in the Upper San Juan Basin in Colorado beginning in approximately June of 2005 and continuing until December 2005,” according to the plea agreement worked out with federal prosecutors.

The investigation into the bid-rigging practices is being conducted with the assistance of the Federal Bureau of Investigation offices in Colorado.

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