H. Dean Jones II, president of Texas Gas Transmission and its parent company, Boardwalk Pipeline Partners, is retiring March 1.

He's leaving at a time when both companies are seeing a major expansion.

Texas Gas' $590 million share of the $3.7 billion expansion is the largest in the company's 60-year history, Jones said Monday.

Boardwalk will double the capacity of its pipelines to handle 7 billion cubic feet of natural gas a day, he said.

"We'll be moving 10 percent of all U.S. production on a daily basis," Jones said. "We move about 6 percent now."

Neither Texas Gas nor Boardwalk owns the natural gas.

"We're like the UPS driver," said Rolf A. Gafvert, Boardwalk's chief executive officer. "We just deliver."

Gafvert, who is based in Houston, will assume Jones' duties in March.

Boardwalk's remaining senior management in Owensboro -- Jamie Buskill, senior vice president, treasurer and chief financial officer; Steven Barkauskas, vice president, controller and chief accounting officer; and James Jones, vice president of tax -- will move to Houston this year.

But Jones said the Boardwalk headquarters will remain in Owensboro because Kentucky's tax laws are more favorable to corporate headquarters.

Dan Goedde, vice president of technical services, will become general manager of Boardwalk's Owensboro operations when Jones leaves.

He said Monday that the company has 293 employees in Owensboro.

Texas Gas currently donates approximately $500,000 a year to more than 100 area charities, Jones said.

And that will continue, he said.

The five groups that get the most money from Texas Gas are the United Way of the Ohio Valley, Brescia University, Kentucky Wesleyan College, RiverPark Center and Junior Achievement, Goedde said.

Texas Gas matches employee contributions of up to $5,000 a year to any organization that meets the company's guidelines, he said.

The expansion projects include:

-- A 242-mile, 42-inch pipeline from DeSoto Parish in western Louisiana to Harrisville, Miss. It belongs to Gulf South's pipeline system. Gulf South is also owned by Boardwalk.

-- A new pipeline company called Gulf Crossing, also owned by Boardwalk. This company is building 357 miles of 42-inch pipe from Sherman, Texas, to Perryville, La.

-- A 112-mile expansion of 42-inch pipe from Harrisville, Miss., to a point near the Mississippi-Alabama line for Gulf South.

-- And Texas Gas is building 165 miles of 36-inch pipeline from Conway County, Ark., to Coahoma County, Miss. It adds 800 million cubic feet of capacity.

-- Texas Gas is also building 95 miles of pipeline from Greenville, Miss., to Kosciusko, Miss., to add 750 million cubic feet.

Gafvert said natural gas prices have reached a level that makes it affordable to tap into "huge deposits in Texas and Arkansas." And the pipelines are needed to get that gas to market.

All the expansion will be completed by early next year, Jones said.

Although much of the expansion is being done by Texas Gas' sister companies, engineers and others in the Owensboro office are working on the project, he said.

Boardwalk, owned by Loews Corp., reported net income of $155.7 million for the first nine months of 2007 -- up 17.7 percent from $132.3 million a year earlier.

Copyright (c) 2008, Messenger-Inquirer, Owensboro, Ky. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

Related Project
Gulf Crossing Pipeline
Facility Type: Pipeline Owner: Gulf Crossing Pipeline Co. LLC (Boardwalk Pipeline Partners, LP)
Scope: New Construction Location: Sherman, Texas to Perryville, La. United States