Shareholders of El Paso Corp. Friday approved the company’s merger with Kinder Morgan Inc. (KMI) during a special meeting.

Based on a preliminary count of votes, about 70% of outstanding El Paso common shares were voted, and of these more than 95% were voted in favor of the deal.

“We are pleased that our shareholders overwhelmingly approved the pending merger with Kinder Morgan and we appreciate their support,” said El Paso CEO Doug Foshee. “We view this as a tremendous outcome for our shareholders and customers, and we look forward to closing the transaction, which is still expected to occur in the second quarter.”

El Paso said it will file a Form 8-K with the Securities and Exchange Commission with the final results as soon as they are available.

The deal is moving forward with the reluctant blessing of a Delaware business court judge who recently admonished Foshee and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. for “disturbing” behavior that led to the transaction (see Daily GPI, March 2).

The deal was announced last October and was said to be largely driven by development of North American shale gas plays (see Daily GPI, Oct. 18, 2011). “We believe that natural gas is going to play an increasingly integral role in North America,” said KMI CEO Richard D. Kinder at the time. “With the recent development of shale resources, there are now abundant domestic supplies of natural gas, which are being used increasingly to generate electricity and are environmentally friendly.”

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