Following its recent purchase of Bangor Natural Gas Company, Unitil has begun a series of meetings with municipal officials in the greater Bangor area to introduce the company to local communities and highlight its commitment to strengthening the relationships that have been built since BNG began operations in 1998.
Unitil, a provider of electricity and natural gas to customers in New England, acquired BNG in January, adding approximately 8,500 gas customers, 351 miles of distribution pipelines, and nine miles of transmission pipelines to its system.
As part of its community outreach effort, Unitil External Affairs Director Alec O’Meara recently met with representatives from Bangor, Brewer and Orono and plans to connect with other communities in the company’s service territory in the weeks ahead.
“These initial meetings were really our first opportunity to introduce ourselves to the communities we’ll be serving and we appreciate the time local representatives spent with us,” O’Meara said. “We know they’ve had strong relationships with the operations team at Bangor Natural Gas and we felt it was important to emphasize the fact that nobody local is going anywhere. When they need to talk to someone about what’s happening on a certain street, or if they need to address permitting or other issues, we want local community leaders to know that those relationships that they’ve developed over the years will not be changing.”
Headquartered in Hampton, N.H., Unitil serves 97,600 natural gas customers in Maine, Massachusetts and New Hampshire. The company also provides electricity to 109,400 customers in Massachusetts and New Hampshire.
As a local utility that has been serving other parts of Maine and New England for many years, the recent municipal meetings were an opportunity for Unitil to outline the resources that the company will be able to bring to its relationship with Bangor area customers.
“During these meetings we talked about our communication philosophies, which include having dedicated contact people for municipalities. If they’re hearing something from a customer, a business, a resident or if local officials have questions on energy issues in general, we want to make sure that we’re a resource for them,” O’Meara said.
The company also explained plans for holding a regional natural gas safety breakfast in the Bangor area in the coming months. The breakfast would be similar to ones held annually in Unitil’s other service territories. During these events, which are attended by local first responders, the company shares important safety information and other critical resources aimed at improving its coordinated efforts and communication and the ability to respond to an emergency event.
In addition, O’Meara outlined Unitil’s plans to bring its sustainability and safety practices to the company’s new communities, including new technology designed to prevent the release of natural gas emissions into the air. That technology includes a special vehicle equipped with an Advanced Mobile Leak Detection (AMLD) system to more efficiently and accurately identify and measure fugitive emissions. In recent years, the company has also purchased “ZEVAC” (Zero Emission Vacuum and Compression) units that allow for natural gas to be safely captured and transferred from one pipeline to another rather than being released directly into the atmosphere.
For more information on Unitil’s recent purchase of Bangor Natural Gas and what it means for customers, visit https://unitil.com/bng.
