CHARLOTTE, N.C., July 13 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Piedmont Natural Gas today announced that Brad Merlie, formerly Director of Operations - Eastern Venezuela for Williams International, will join Piedmont as Director - LNG Services, effective July 25th. Mr. Merlie, who will report directly to Michael Yount, Piedmont's Senior Vice President of Operations, will be responsible for the Company's day-to-day LNG storage operations. Piedmont currently operates and maintains three LNG storage facilities in North Carolina and Tennessee with a combined capacity of 3 billion cubic feet (Bcf) of natural gas. The facilities allow Piedmont to secure and store competitively priced natural gas supplies in the summer months for use by Piedmont's more than 1 million customers during the winter heating period.
"We're very excited to welcome Brad to our leadership team here at Piedmont," commented Michael Yount. "Brad brings a wealth of healthy leadership experience and operational expertise to this important part of our business and will fit in very nicely with the culture we've established here."
Brad is a graduate of North Carolina State University with a BS degree in Civil Engineering.
About Piedmont Natural Gas
Piedmont Natural Gas is an energy services company primarily engaged in the distribution of natural gas to more than 1 million residential, commercial and industrial utility customers in North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee, including 62,000 customers served by municipalities who are wholesale customers. Our subsidiaries are invested in joint venture, energy-related businesses, including unregulated retail natural gas marketing, interstate natural gas storage and intrastate natural gas transportation. More information about Piedmont Natural Gas is available on the Internet at http://www.piedmontng.com/.
