I had the same thoughts. Or maybe there would have been a way to manually release large amounts of gas to the biggest, regular customers where they could sort out the billing mess later while reducing disruption.
Maybe there were regulatory reasons. Can't be held liable by the EPA.
Funny enough this reminds me of when JP Morgan cancelled Tesla's wireless electricity project once he learned that usage could not be metered.
I would hazard a guess that the losses sustained by sloppy estimating would be less than that of halting operations altogether.