Williams CEO Alan Armstrong said Tuesday the $50 million purchase of Southern Company’s natural gas energy trading unit Sequent Energy Management last week provides the capability to connect with more people and the opportunity to better source and deliver responsibly produced natural gas.

Williams, whose natural gas infrastructure spans the deepwater Gulf of Mexico (GOM), Rockies, Pacific Northwest and the Eastern Seaboard, has “the assets,” Armstrong said during a quarterly conference call. “But we don’t really have all those contacts with people. We talk to customers about long-term capacity on a regular basis. We’re not out regularly talking to them about how we manage the volatility in the business. This really gives us a great opportunity to do that and look...