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

Houston, Texas Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...

. The company was acquired by

InterNorth InterNorth Inc. was a large energy company headquartered at the Northern Natural Gas Building in Omaha, Nebraska, in the United States, specializing in natural gas pipelines but also a force in the plastics industry, coal and petroleum exploration ...

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 founded by Kenneth Lay in 1985 as a merger between Lay's Houston Natural Gas and InterNorth, both relatively small regional companies. B ...

, 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 Houston (; ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in Texas, the Southern United States#Major cities, most populous city in the Southern United States, the List of United States cities by population, fourth-most pop ...

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 Texas Gulf Coast is an intertidal zone which borders the coastal region of South Texas, Southeast Texas, and the Texas Coastal Bend. The Texas coastal geography boundaries the Gulf of Mexico encompassing a geographical distance relative bearing ...

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 CenterPoint Energy, Inc. is an American Fortune 500 electric and natural gas utility serving several markets in the American states of Indiana, Ohio, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, and Texas. It was formerly known as Reliant Energy (from wh ...

, and began to diversify into industries outside energy. Later, in 1984, the company fended off a

hostile take over In business, a takeover is the purchase of one company (law), company (the ''target'') by another (the ''acquirer'' or ''bidder''). In the UK, the term refers to the acquisition of a public company whose shares are listed on a stock exchange, in ...

by rival energy company

Coastal Corporation Coastal Corporation was a diversified energy and petroleum products company headquartered at 9 Greenway Plaza (Coastal Tower) in Greenway Plaza, Houston, Texas. The company was founded in 1955 by Oscar Wyatt and incorporated in 1955 as Coasta ...

, 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 who was the founder, chief executive officer and chairman of Enron. He was heavily involved in the eponymous accounting scandal that unraveled in 2001 into the large ...

, 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 {{US-energy-company-stub