(Bloomberg) -- NiSource Inc. is weighing a sale of Columbia Gas of Massachusetts, according to people familiar with the matter, as it looks to unload the subsidiary responsible for deadly pipeline explosions last year.

NiSource is working with an adviser on an auction for the division, which could fetch about $2 billion, said the people, who asked to not be identified because the matter isn’t public. The company received bids this month from rival utilities, the people said. No final decision has been made and NiSource could opt to keep the business, they said.

A representative for NiSource declined to comment.

NiSource rose as much as 2% in New York trading Monday. Shares closed up 1.4% to $29.16, valuing the company at $10.9 billion.

NiSource said in May that it is potentially facing more than $1 billion in claims from last year’s Merrimack Valley gas explosions, which killed one person and injured more than two dozen. The pipelines that blew up are part of Columbia Gas of Massachusetts, one of the state’s largest distributors of natural gas, with about 323,000 customers.

Gas distributors have been replacing aging pipes after a PG&E Corp. line exploded in 2010, according to Charles Fishman, a utilities analyst with Morningstar Inc.

“It might be worth more to somebody else,’’ Fishman said in an interview. “There might be a better owner at this point. Two billion sounds a little high. Could they get $1 billion for it? Sure."

NiSource, based in Merrillville, Indiana, acquired Columbia Gas of Massachusetts and other gas utilities in its $8.5 billion takeover of Columbia Energy Group in 2000.

NiSource is one of North America’s largest natural gas distributors, serving more than 3.5 million customers in seven states, according to its website.

(Updates with analyst comments starting in sixth paragraph.)

To contact the reporters on this story: Kiel Porter in Chicago at kporter17@bloomberg.net;Jim Efstathiou Jr. in New York at jefstathiou@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Elizabeth Fournier at efournier5@bloomberg.net, Matthew Monks, Michael Hytha

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