El Paso Corporation Achieves Milestone As Pipelines Attain Investment-Grade Rating
HOUSTON, March 14 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — El Paso Corporation announced today that on March 13, Moody’s Investor Services upgraded El Paso Corporation’s pipeline subsidiaries to Baa3, marking the first time since 2002 the pipelines have been rated investment-grade by the agency. El Paso Corporation received a two-notch upgrade to Ba3 and maintains a positive outlook.
“We welcome the recognition by Moody’s and are proud of the important accomplishment we have achieved after nearly five years of work to improve the company’s credit profile,” said Mark Leland, El Paso’s executive vice president and chief financial officer. “Having investment-grade pipelines will help reduce our cost of capital as we develop our deep inventory of expansion projects and look for new opportunities to grow the business. Importantly, the improved ratings mark a significant step for the company as we work our way toward a corporate-level investment-grade rating.”
El Paso Corporation provides natural gas and related energy products in a safe, efficient, and dependable manner. El Paso owns North America’s largest natural gas pipeline system and one of North America’s largest independent natural gas producers. For more information, visit http://www.elpaso.com/ .
Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements
This release includes forward-looking statements and projections, made in reliance on the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The company has made every reasonable effort to ensure that the information and assumptions on which these statements and projections are based are current, reasonable, and complete. However, a variety of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from the projections, anticipated results or other expectations expressed in this release, including, without limitation, our ability to implement and achieve our objectives in our 2007 plan, including achieving our debt-reduction targets, earnings and cash flow targets; our ability to comply with the covenants in our various financing documents; our ability to obtain necessary governmental approvals for proposed pipeline projects and our ability to successfully construct and operate such projects; actions by the credit rating agencies; the successful close of our financing transactions; and other factors described in the company’s (and its affiliates’) Securities and Exchange Commission filings. While the company makes these statements and projections in good faith, neither the company nor its management can guarantee that anticipated future results will be achieved. Reference must be made to those filings for additional important factors that may affect actual results. The company assumes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements made herein or any other forward-looking statements made by the company, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.
El Paso Corporation
CONTACT: investor and public relations, Bruce L. Connery, VicePresident, +1-713-420-5855, or fax, +1-713-420-4417, or media relations, BillBaerg, Manager, +1-713-420-2906, or fax, +1-713-420-4417, both of El PasoCorporation
Web site: http://www.elpaso.com/