Williams to sell businesses to Inter Pipeline

Williams and Williams Partners agreed to sell their Canadian businesses to Inter Pipeline Ltd. for more than $1 billion. The companies expect the transactions to close in 2016.

According to the Calgary Herald, Inter Pipeline will acquire two natural gas liquids (NGL) plants in Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada, through this deal. The company will also acquire a gas processing plant near Redwater, Alberta, and a 260-mile pipeline network linking the facilities. In addition, Inter Pipeline will assume responsibility of a proposed propane facility that will produce propylene.

The two plants in Fort McMurray extract NGLs and synthetic petrochemicals. The fractionator near Redwater separates NGLs and petrochemicals into propane, propylene and butane, among other products. Additionally, the proposed propane dehydrogenation facility will have a capacity of 525 kilotons per annum of polymer-grade propylene production, Williams says, and it is expected to begin operations by the end of 2019.

“We are proud of the tremendous businesses our Canadian team has built since we first began in Canada in 2002,” says Alan Armstrong, Williams president and CEO. “This transaction represents significant progress on a major component of the 2016 capital and financing plan we announced in January.”

Transactions for this acquisition are expected to close sometime this year, Williams says. TD Securities is acting as the lead financial adviser to Williams on the transactions and provided fairness opinions to the board of directors of both Williams and Williams Partners.