Following on the heels of its merger with El Paso Corp.’s GulfTerra Energy Partners LLP last month, Enterprise Products Partners LP announced it would restructure its board of directors so that most of the general partner’s directors are independent. Enterprise merged with GulfTerra, El Paso Corp.’s energy partnership, last month (see Daily GPI, Dec. 16, 2003).

Under the restructuring, inside directors Randa Duncan Williams and Richard H. Bachmann agreed to resign from the board of the general partnership immediately.

“This initiative by our general partner enables us to achieve an important independence goal of our board and provides our unitholders with increased transparency with respect to our corporate governance,” said Enterprise CEO Dub Andras. “Consistent with this goal, under the terms of our recently announced merger with GulfTerra, the board of directors of the general partner of the combined company will consist of 10 directors, six of whom will be independent directors. This is an important step toward achieving that mix of directors.”

With the resignations, the majority of the general partner’s remaining five-member board qualifies as independent directors under the criteria established by the New York Stock Exchange. The two remaining inside directors are Dan L. Duncan, chairman and co-founder of Enterprise, and Andras, who is also president of Enterprise. The other outside directors are Dr. Ralph S. Cunningham, Lee W. Marshall Sr. and Richard S. Snell. All three are members of the general partner’s Audit and Conflicts Committee, and Cunningham serves as chairman of the committee.

Bachmann was elected a director of Enterprise’s general partner in June 2000 and will continue to serve as executive vice president, chief legal officer and secretary of the general partner. Williams was elected a director of Enterprise’s general partner in April 1998, and is currently president and CEO of privately held Enterprise Products Co.

Following its merger, Enterprise is the second-largest publicly traded midstream energy partnership, with an enterprise value of more than $7.0 billion. The Houston-based company provides midstream energy services to producers and consumers of natural gas and natural gas liquids (NGLs), and its services include natural gas transportation, processing and storage and NGL fractionation (or separation), transportation, storage and import/export terminalling.

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