Houston Natural Gas Corporation (HNG) was a gas utility headquartered in

Houston, Texas Houston ( ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and in the Southern United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the county seat, seat of ...

. The company was acquired by

InterNorth InterNorth Inc. was a large energy company headquartered at the Northern Natural Gas Building in Omaha, Nebraska Omaha ( ) is the List of cities in Nebraska, most populous city in the U.S. state of Nebraska. It is located in the Midwestern ...

Inc. in 1985, with HNG executives taking top positions at InterNorth. Following the transaction, InterNorth was renamed

Enron Corporation Enron Corporation was an American energy, commodities, and services company based in Houston, Texas. It was led by Kenneth Lay and developed in 1985 via a merger between Houston Natural Gas and InterNorth, both relatively small regional compa ...

, and the company headquarters was moved from InterNorth's base in Omaha to the former HNG offices in Houston. The company is notable for former CEO Kenneth Lay who became CEO of the newly formed Enron.

History

HNG was founded in 1940 as a company to sell the gas produced by the Houston Pipe Line Company, after negotiations with Houston Gas and Fuel fell through. In 1956 HNG acquired the Houston Pipe Line Company and its assets for $36 million. At the time, HPL owned 761 miles of transmission lines crossing the Texas Gulf Coast and had been HNG's principal supplier since its founding. In 1963 HNG acquired the Valley Gas Production Company and its pipelines, with the president, Robert R. Herring, joining the company as vice-president. He became president of the company in 1967, and chairman of the board in 1973. In 1976 HNG exited the energy distribution market, selling its operations to Entex Energy, and began to diversify into industries outside energy. Later, in 1984, the company fended off a hostile take over by rival energy company Coastal Corporation, in a successful attempt to fend off the takeover the board hired then Transco Energy president,

Ken Lay Kenneth Lee Lay (April 15, 1942 – July 5, 2006) was an American businessman and political donor who was the founder, chief executive officer and chairman of Enron. He was heavily involved in Enron's accounting scandal that unraveled in 2001 ...

, to manage the company. A year later, in 1985, Ken Lay negotiated the acquisition of HNG by InterNorth and his president position at the new HNG InterNorth, later known as Enron.

References

Defunct companies based in Texas Enron Companies formerly listed on the New York Stock Exchange {{US-energy-company-stub