CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Natural gas companies NiSource and Columbia Pipeline Group completed a previously announced separation late Wednesday night.
“NiSource will focus on gas distribution and electric generation business while we at Columbia get to focus our business on the interstate natural gas transmission, midstream and storage components,” Columbia Pipeline Group manager of external communications Scott Castleman said. 
The two companies originally announced the split late last year. Castleman said it creates the renewed focus and another option for investors. Columbia Pipeline Group is now being traded separately on Wall Street.
Columbia is based in Houston, TX, but most of its employees are in Charleston. There are a total of 600 company workers in West Virginia and 400 in the Capital City, Castleman said. The company has 15,000 miles of natural gas pipeline spread across 15 states.
“This is really a great time to be with the company,” Castleman said.
NiSource is based in Indiana and took over all of the Columbia properties about a decade ago. Its gas utility companies include Columbia Gas and NIPSCO.
The companies said NiSource shareholders were distributed one (1) share of Columbia Pipeline Group stock for every one share of NiSource common stock they held as of 5:00 p.m. CT on June 19, 2015.