Haynes and Boone's Newsroom
Jim Wade in the San Antonio Business Journal: Kinder Morgan assets could flow to San Antonio pipeline operators
10/28/2011
San Antonio’s NuStar Energy L.P. and other pipeline operators could benefit if federal regulators make Kinder Morgan Inc. sell off assets to win approval for its proposed $21 billion takeover of El Paso Corp., antitrust experts say.
The deal, announced earlier this month, would create the country’s largest natural-gas pipeline network — and likely draw the scrutiny of the Federal Trade Commission because of possible competitive implications. A merged Kinder-El Paso would control 67,000 miles of pipelines, including overlapping assets in Northwest and Coastal Texas, in addition to Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska and Wyoming...
Antitrust attorneys added that it's too early to tell which of the merging companies' assets might come into regulators' crosshairs.
Jim Wade, a Washington-based antitrust attorney for Haynes and Boone, says he expects the FTC to begin contacting customers willing to say competition between Kinder and El Paso keeps their distribution costs lower.
“It’s a pretty classic kind of situation where you expect the regulators to look at market overlap and see where it puts customers in a bind,” he says.
Excerpt from the San Antonio Business Journal, Oct. 28, 2011. To view the full article, click here (subscription required).