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                                                                      EXHIBIT 99



                                          For release:  Upon receipt

                                          Contact:  Carol Churchill
                                                    Bay State Gas
                                                    (508) 836-7370


           BAY STATE GAS SELLS ITS INTEREST IN THE MASSPOWER ELECTRIC
                   COGENERATION FACILITY AT CONSIDERABLE GAIN


Westborough, Mass. -- June 30, 1997 -- Effective today, Bay State Gas Company
(NYSE:BGC) has sold its 17.5% equity investment in the MASSPOWER electric
cogeneration facility, located in Springfield, Massachusetts, to Energy
Investors Fund Group of Boston. Without releasing details of the transaction,
Bay State Gas Company's Chief Financial Officer Thomas W. Sherman commented
that, "the proceeds from the sale are well in excess of book value, and will
contribute approximately $0.57 in earnings per share in the third quarter of
fiscal 1997."

MASSPOWER is a 240-megawatt gas-fired, combined-cycle cogeneration facility
located at Monsanto Company's plant in the Indian Orchard section of
Springfield, Massachusetts. The facility has been in operation since July 1993,
providing steam for use in Monsanto's manufacturing process and electricity
primarily for sale under long-term contracts to five utilities: Boston Edison
Company; Commonwealth Electric Company; Con Edison; Western Massachusetts
Electric Company; and Massachusetts Municipal Wholesale Electric Company. Now,
in addition to Energy Investors Fund Group's 17.5% equity interest, other
owners/ partners in the project include affiliates of U.S. Generating (47.5%),
Tenneco Energy (17.5%) (now a wholly-owned subsidiary of El Paso Energy Corp.)
and General Electric Capital Corporation (17.5%).

"MASSPOWER has been an outstanding investment for Bay State, but we decided
to sell because we did not see wholesale power generation as a future core
business for Bay State," said Joel L. Singer, Bay State Gas Company's
President and Chief Operating Officer.

Bay State Gas Company operates in three related energy business segments --Local
Transportation, Energy Products & Services, and Energy Ventures. Geographically,
Bay State is the largest gas utility in New England, serving about 304,000
natural gas customers in the states of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine.
The company's nonregulated Energy Products & Services business segment serves
about 90,000 residential and small commercial and industrial customers
throughout New England under the brand name "EnergyUSA." Bay State's Energy
Ventures segment develops business opportunities and projects which are closely
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related to the company's core businesses.  Additional information about Bay
State is available on the World Wide Web at "http://www.bgc.com."

This release contains forward-looking statements about the company and its
nonregulated affiliates. The company cautions that, while it believes such
statements to be reasonable and makes them in good faith, they almost always
vary from actual results, and the differences between assumed facts or basis and
actual results can be material, depending on the circumstances. Investors should
be aware of important factors that could have a material impact on future
results. Factors include, but are not limited to, the effectiveness of the
company's cost control and restructuring efforts, the regulatory environment,
customers' preferences, unforeseen competition, and other uncertainties, all of
which are difficult to predict, and many of which are beyond the company's
control.