CenterPoint Energy’s Pipeline Services unit announced that it recently signed two separate agreements with Northern Natural Gas (NNG) to provide operations and maintenance (O&M) services for NNG’s 30-inch Black Marlin System and its Matagorda Offshore Pipeline System (MOPS) along with some related offshore Louisiana pipeline assets.

Under the agreements, the unit said it will provide complete operations and maintenance services including: measurement, gas quality, supervisory control and data acquisition communication, corrosion, dehydration, leak surveys, encroachment monitoring, pipeline patrols, pigging, public awareness, emergency response, and Department of Transportation records maintenance. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“These O&M opportunities with NNG call upon the diverse services that CenterPoint Energy Pipeline Services provides to its clients,” said David Smith, of CenterPoint Energy Pipeline Services’ marketing & business development group. “They also help to expand our Gulf Coast presence and enable us to pursue other substantial O&M, project management and integrity management related opportunities in this region where so many other companies have pipelines, underground storage caverns or marine terminals.”

The CenterPoint unit said its Houston Gulf Coast Team will provide services for the MOPS assets, while the Black Marlin system will be managed by the company’s East Texas Team, which has offices in Pittsburgh and Marshall, TX.

Owned by MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co., NNG provides transportation and storage services to approximately 75 utility customers and numerous end-use customers in the upper Midwestern United States and provides cross-haul/grid transportation between other interstate and intrastate pipelines in the Permian, Anadarko, Hugoton and Midwest areas. In addition, NNG operates three natural gas storage facilities and two LNG peaking units.

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