Natural Gas Business Associates history

In 1821, William Hart dug the first successful natural gas well in the United States in Fredonia, New York.

In 1836, the City of Philadelphia created the first municipally owned natural gas distribution company.

Within the first 30 years after Standard Oil's founding in 1870, Rockefeller had formed and acquired companies that explored for gas throughout the Appalachian basin and piped it to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Cleveland and Akron, Ohio; and other growing industrial centers in the region.

During most of the 19th century, natural gas was used almost exclusively as a source of light, but in 1885, Robert Bunsen's invention of what is now known as the Bunsen burner opened vast new opportunities to use natural gas.

Since 1937 CNG has led the United States in natural gas storage capacity.

In 1942 Standard Oil (New Jersey) organized Consolidated Natural Gas Company as a subsidiary and transferred to CNG its natural gas gathering and transmission assets.

In 1947 to cope with the postwar surge in demand, CNG made its first public stock offering, totaling $8.2 million.

CNG's first debenture issue, which totaled $30 million, came in 1948.

CNG formed Consolidated Natural Gas Service Company, Inc. in 1961 to centralize accounting, data processing, employee relations, marketing, and rate and tax administration functions.

In 1965 CNG merged its Hope and New York State Natural Gas interstate pipeline companies to form Consolidated Gas Supply Corporation, now known as CNG Transmission Corporation.

With a group of partners, CNG purchased 168,000 acres of developable drilling sites in the gulf that year, and in 1966 established a full-scale exploration and production staff in New Orleans to become the operator on many of its leases.

In 1969 CNG acquired the West Ohio Gas Company, of Lima, Ohio, along with its 50,000 customers.

By 1972 the New Orleans office was made into a subsidiary, CNG Producing Company.

In 1979 CNG became the first gas utility company to sell significant amounts of gas and associated storage to neighboring pipelines and utilities, and later sold independent storage services.

Natural Gas Associates' first natural gas processing and gathering system went into operation in March 1983.

That oversupply, worsened by a string of unusually warm winters, led to declining gas and oil prices, and produced a trying time for CNG. Profits remained flat or fell off while corporate revenues reached peak levels, cresting at $3.5 billion in 1984.

In 1986, the company purchased the Colorado Gathering & Processing Corporation, a subsidiary of Wichita Industries.

By 1987, NGA had annual sales of $85.3 million and net income of $1.1 million.

Bullwinkle, the world’s tallest man-made offshore structure, was launched May 21, 1988 by Shell Offshore, Inc.

The group was created following the March 24, 1989 oil tanker spill in Alaska’s Prince William Sound.

In 1990, the company purchased natural gas gathering systems from Galaxy Energies Inc. and AD-AM Gas Company.

ANG prospered in 1991.

But most of ANG's activity in 1992 was concentrated in Oklahoma, where the company consolidated its system in the eastern part of the state with gathering and processing facilities acquired from Triumph, Finlay, and Philips Petroleum.

In 1993, the company owned about 8,000 miles of pipeline, and had gathering, processing, or transmission facilities in nine southern and southwestern states: Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas.

The company continued to expand through acquisitions in 1994.

In 1995, another alliance was formed with electric utility, Energy Australia, to develop cogeneration and gas projects in Asia and Australia.

In 1996, CNG International was created to look for overseas markets.

As this 2004 edition of the APGA History Highlights goes to print, liquefied natural gas (LNG) is beginning to play a more prominent role in the overall gas supply picture.