Piedmont Nat Gas Reports Added $22.5M Investment in AGL Venture, Maintains 15% Stake in Venture

Piedmont Natural Gas

today announced an additional $22.5 million cash contribution to its existing investment in SouthStar Energy Services, a joint venture with AGL Resources

.  The additional investment, effective September 1, maintains Piedmont's 15 percent ownership level in SouthStar, which markets and sells unregulated retail natural gas to customers in the southeastern United States, as well as Ohio, New York and Maryland.     Simultaneous with the cash contribution by Piedmont, AGL Resources will contribute to SouthStar the unregulated retail natural gas customer accounts and related assets it acquired from Nicor Inc. in December, 2011 and the unregulated retail natural gas customer accounts it acquired in a separate transaction in June 2013, both in Illinois. The addition of this Illinois book of business to SouthStar's market footprint will expand the retail energy marketer's customer base by approximately 108,000 customers.