Southern Union Company was a
natural gas
Natural gas (also fossil gas, methane gas, and gas) is a naturally occurring compound of gaseous hydrocarbons, primarily methane (95%), small amounts of higher alkanes, and traces of carbon dioxide and nitrogen, hydrogen sulfide and helium ...
utility and energy resources company based 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 ...
. In 2012, the company was acquired by
Energy Transfer Partners.
The company owned and operated more than of gathering and transportation pipelines that transported natural gas from major producing areas to major markets in the Southeast, Midwest, and Great Lakes regions. It also owned a large
liquefied natural gas
Liquefied natural gas (LNG) is natural gas (predominantly methane, CH4, with some mixture of ethane, C2H6) that has been cooled to liquid form for ease and safety of non-pressurized storage or transport. It takes up about 1/600th the volume o ...
import terminal.
[
Southern Union Gas Services, with approximately 5,500 miles of pipelines, was engaged in the gathering, transmission, treating, processing and re-delivery of natural gas and ]natural gas liquids
Natural-gas condensate, also called natural gas liquids, is a low-density mixture of hydrocarbon liquids that are present as gaseous components in the raw natural gas produced from many natural gas fields. Some gas species within the raw natura ...
in Texas and New Mexico.[
]
History
The company was founded in 1929 by Clint Murchison Sr. as Wink Gas Co., a pipeline and utility company.
In February 1990, Metro Mobile CTS, controlled by billionaire George Lindemann, acquired the company for $175 million.
In 1991, the Arizona operations were sold to Citizens Utilities.
The company acquired pipeline assets from Enron and a large natural gas business from the Bass family.
In 2003, the Texas utility operations were sold to ONEOK.
In 2012, the company sued the government in the case of '' Southern Union Co. v. United States'', which was decided upon by the Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all Federal tribunals in the United States, U.S. federal court cases, and over Stat ...
, after the company was convicted of storing hazardous liquid mercury without a permit.
In March 2012, the company was acquired by Energy Transfer Partners.
References
{{Reflist, 1
Energy companies established in 1929
American companies established in 1929
Defunct energy companies of the United States