TransCanada confirmed rumors reported in these pages last week that the company will acquire Houston-based Columbia Pipeline Group and its 24,000-km pipeline network for $13 billion, creating one of the largest regulated natural gas transmission businesses in North America.

Russ Girling, TransCanada's CEO, said adding Columbia’s operations will create a 91,000-km natural-gas-pipeline system connecting the most prolific supply basins in the Marcellus and Utica shale gas regions of the United States to markets across the continent. It will also be positioned to feed liquefied natural gas terminals for export to international markets.

Moreover, he said that the combined company will have $23-billion (Canadian) of near-term projects secured by long-term contracts or regulated cost-of-service revenue that will support, or even increase, TransCanada’s target of 8-per-cent to 10-per-cent dividend growth a year through 2020.