This is a day for celebration as Houston Pipe Line Company (HPL) officially
joins the American Electric Power family.

I'm both excited and thrilled to welcome  you to the AEP team--excited by
the new opportunities this relationship brings and thrilled by the
potential to do great things together.

As the newest member of the AEP family, you are joining 22,000 fellow
employees who contribute to an exciting, energetic company with diverse
resources and enormous possibilities for their application.  HPL helps
strengthen AEP's winning formula of successfully combining energy,
information and people to forge a bright future grounded in human talent, a
strong asset base and participation in high-growth businesses.  We are
very pleased that HPL will be a major player in our immediate goal to
become a top five gas marketer, not only in volume but in market presence
as well.

We're already in the process of integrating the business practices of our
two organizations and that will continue over the coming months.  We hope
to accomplish this process as smoothly as possible.  Your patience and
support during this period will be very important and much appreciated.

For those of you located in our downtown office, I hope you'll  come to the
conference room on the 15th floor at 11:30 a.m. for a welcome luncheon
barbecue!  Unfortunately, my personal schedule will prevent me from joining
you for today's celebration, but Dwayne Hart of our Energy Services group
will be on hand to offer a personal welcome.  But rest assured, I look
forward to meeting and working with you in the days and weeks ahead.

Again, welcome to the AEP team.  Let the celebration begin!

John F. Norris

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