CMS Energy Corp.’s energy marketing unit, CMS Marketing,Services and Trading (CMS-MST), announced last week the acquisitionof Viron Corp., a Kansas City, MO-based energy services company,from York International for an undisclosed sum. Viron will operateunder the name CMS Viron Energy Services, a subsidiary of CMS-MST.The deal was signed and closed last week.

CMS-MST performed 560 energy service projects last year, andthis latest move allows the CMS Corp. subsidiary to penetrate newmarkets. “This acquisition is a great fit for CMS Energy’s existing$1.2 billion energy services business and adds a local CMS officein 12 additional states,” said Royal P. Lefere Jr., vice presidentof energy management services for CMS-MST. Those 12 states areArizona, Maryland, Virginia, Massachusetts, Florida, Utah,Washington, Ohio, Georgia, California, New York and Arkansas.

CMS said the new company intends to keep all of Viron’s 148employees and 22 offices, providing engineering energy servicesfocused on performance contracting. It designs and engineers energysolutions, arranges financing for customers, provides turnkeyenergy services to facility upgrade projects and providesmeasurement and verification of energy savings.

”With Viron now a part of our business, CMS has offices in 30states, the District of Columbia and three Canadian Provinces,”Lefere added. “We have added capabilities to provide commercial andindustrial customers a full range of energy management services,which includes electric and gas commodity procurement,” Leferesaid. For 1998, CMS-MST procured 370 Bcf, 14 million MW, and 1.2million barrels of NGL.

This is CMS-MST’s latest move in a long list of acquisitions. Twomonths ago the company’s Canadian affiliate, PremStar Energy, acquiredECNG Inc., an independent energy consulting firm, from El Paso EnergyMarketing Canada Inc, giving CMS the ability to provide energyprocurement and management services for over 1,000 industrial,commercial and institutional clients with more than 10,000 end-uselocations across Canada (see Daily GPI, Aug. 4).

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