October 2013, Vol. 240 No. 10

Features

CenterPoint, OGE Energy Name Midstream Operations Team

CenterPoint Energy and OGE Energy Corp. have named the senior operations leadership team for the natural gas midstream partnership that will consist of the former’s interstate pipelines and field services businesses and the latter’s midstream business, Enogex LLC.

Additionally, a new name – Enable Midstream Partners – and logo were unveiled during a recent INGAA membership meeting.

The deal gives Enable Midstream combined assets of nearly $11 billion in nine states. The company owns and operates 8,400 miles of interstate pipelines with nearly 9 Bcf/d of transport capacity and about 2,300 miles of intrastate pipelines. It also has more than 11,000 miles of gathering lines, which in 2012 moved nearly 4 Bcf/d.

“This is an important next step toward operating as an integrated and united company,” said Pete Delaney, OGE Energy chairman, president and CEO. “While we continue to work toward completing our leadership team, the focus today is on establishing the senior operations leadership.”

The new team is comprised of:

• Keith Mitchell, 51, chief operating officer, previously the president of Enogex and member of its board of directors. A 20-year Enogex veteran, he had served as the company’s chief operating officer.

• Mark Schroeder, 56, general counsel, previously the senior vice president and deputy general counsel of Regulation for CenterPoint. He previously worked for El Paso Energy Corp. and Enron Corp.

• Walter Ferguson, 57, senior vice president of Field Operations, Engineering and Construction. Ferguson had been senior vice president of CenterPoint’s midstream Operations, Engineering and Construction Division.

• R. Poe Reed, 57, senior vice president of Pipeline Commercial Operations. He was previously senior vice president and chief commercial officer for CenterPoint’s Pipelines business and had worked for DCP Midstream.

• Steve Merrill, 49, senior vice president of Gathering and Processing Commercial Operations & Administration. He was the chief operating officer of Enogex, and had worked as director of U.S. Operations for Plains All-American.

• David Jewell, 60, senior vice president of System Optimization and Daily Commercial Operations. Jewell was division senior vice president of CenterPoint’s Midstream Capacity Operations, previously working for Duke Energy.

• Pete Kirsch, 50, senior vice president of Environmental Health & Safety and Compliance Services. He was CenterPoint’s senior vice president of Midstream Technical and Compliance Services.

• Paul Brewer, 54, senior vice president of the Project Management Office, including Business Performance Improvement and Supply Chain. He had been Enogex’s vice president of Operations, coming to the company from DCP Midstream.

• Tom Levescy, 44, chief accounting officer, which is the same position he held at Enogex. Before joining Enogex, he had more than 10 years of experience in public accounting.

“We are fortunate to have a tremendous amount of talent in the combined organizations,” said David M. McClanahan, president and CEO of CenterPoint. “We are confident the operations management team will provide the leadership necessary to ensure we continue to operate safely, serve our customers and grow our business.”

The principal offices of the gathering and processing leadership team will be in Oklahoma City where the executive management team is also expected to be headquartered. The interstate pipeline’s principal offices will be in Houston.

In addition to pipeline and gathering infrastructure, the company assets include more than 90 Bcf of storage capacity and 11 major processing plants with nearly 2 Bcf/d of inlet capacity. The deal closed May 1 and is managed by a general partner.

CenterPoint, headquartered in Houston, is an energy delivery company serving more than 5 million metered customers primarily in Arkansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Texas. OGE Energy is the parent company of Oklahoma Gas and Electric Company, a regulated electric utility, serving more than 800,000 customers in Oklahoma and western Arkansas.