General Info

Williams Gas Pipelines Transco, through its subsidiaries, finds, produces, gathers, processes and transports natural gas. Williams' operations are concentrated in the Pacific Northwest, Rocky Mountains, Gulf Coast and Eastern Seaboard. Williams traces its roots to 1908 and the two Williams brothers' construction projects in Fort Smith, Ark. Within a few years the company was building cross-country natural gas and petroleum pipelines. The company began assembling its nationwide system of interstate natural gas pipelines in 1982 with the purchase of Northwest Energy Company. Williams purchased Transco Energy Company in 1995, expanding its natural gas transportation system to the East Coast. This acquisition established Williams as one of the largest-volume transporters of natural gas in the United States. Williams' ingenuity provided the foundation for modern-day telecom networks when it ran fiber-optic cable through decommissioned pipelines. In fact, the company built two coast-to-coast telecom networks. The first one became the fourth-largest U.S. long distance network and was sold to LDDS in 1995. The second, a 33,000-mile network, was spun off as a separate company in 2001. Williams operates three natural gas transmission pipelines, more than 15,000 miles of interstate pipe. Together, these pipelines deliver approximately 12 percent of the natural gas consumed in the U.S.