This week, UGI Corporation completed the previously announced acquisition of Mountaintop Energy Holdings LLC, owner of Mountaineer Gas Company, for an enterprise value of $540 million.
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Indeed, the latter company is the largest gas local distribution company in West Virginia. Therefore, through this acquisition, Mountaineer will become the newest wholly-owned subsidiary of UGI.
Worth noting, all closing conditions are now satisfied, including final regulatory approval from the West Virginia Public Service Commission.
David Lokant’s appointment
UGI also announced that it appointed C. David Lokant as president of Mountaineer, effective immediately. Accordingly, Mr. Lokant will assume responsibility for all aspects of Mountaineer’s operations.
In fact, Mr. Lokant previously served as Chief Operating Officer and Senior Vice President for Mountaineer. Thus, he joined Mountaineer when West Virginia Power Gas assets were purchased from UtiliCorp in 2000.
Moreover, with over 30 years of industry experience, he has held various positions throughout his career in operations; including, for instance, regulatory relations, customer service, accounting, and engineering.
Thus far, Mountaineer serves nearly 215,000 customers across 50 of West Virginia’s 55 counties. Hence, the customer base is approximately 90% residential, with the remaining 10% comprised of commercial and industrial customers. Additionally, fully regulated, Mountaineer and its system have nearly 6,000 miles of distribution, transmission, and gathering pipelines.
Reception at UGI
In this sense, Roger Perreault, President and Chief Executive Officer of UGI, commented in a media release; “We are very pleased to complete this important acquisition and expand our core utility operations in the mid-Atlantic region. I am also confident that Dave will provide excellent leadership of Mountaineer.”
Moreover, Mr. Perrault noted that this addition provides UGI “with an opportunity to deliver safe, reliable, affordable, and environmentally responsible energy solutions to customers in West Virginia.”
“We see significant opportunities to make regulated investments focused on long-term system enhancement and expand the reach of natural gas to both unserved and underserved areas. We are also pleased with this acquisition as it supports our strategy of delivering reliable earnings growth and rebalancing our portfolio.”
Similarly, Robert F. Beard, UGI’s Executive Vice President, Natural Gas, said; “We look forward to welcoming the Mountaineer employees and customers to the UGI family of companies. Mountaineer is a great fit for our natural gas businesses and UGI as a whole.”
Besides, Beard said the company “brings an exceptional management team with significant experience, a track record of safe operations, and strong regulatory, customer and community relationships.”
Beard also said the company looks “forward to becoming a part of the West Virginia community and investing in the safety and reliability of the Mountaineer system in alignment with our environmental efforts to lower methane and other GHG emissions.”
