Dominion Energy has made the decision to cancel the proposed Atlantic Coast pipeline.
Dominion wants to focus on its regulated electric and natural gas utilities and its push to net zero carbon emissions, chairman and chief executive officer Thomas Farrell said Sunday, announcing the $9.7 billion sale of Domion's gas pipeline operations to Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway investment company.
Meanwhile, the decision to cancel the Atlantic Coast Pipeline project comes less than three weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected arguments that it should not be allowed to cross the Appalachian Trail.
Costs on the project already are about $3.4 billion in a more than five-year-old effort to build the controversial 600 mile link between gas fields in West Virginia and big markets for gas in Hampton Roads, central Virginia and North Carolina. Dominion’s share of that expense, 53%, is the same as its ownership stake in the project.
Despite its decision to cancel the Atlantic Coast pipeline, Dominion says Virginia still needs gas — more than anyone can currently deliver.
Restoring rights of way where Dominion has been clearing trees and resolving pending disputes with some landowners along the route will be the work of the next several months. Dominion officials do not expect to ask landowners to return compensation payments already made for use of their property.
The sale of Dominion’s national wholesale gas business, meanwhile, involves 7,700 miles of pipelines and 900 billion cubic feet of gas storage facilities. These are located in several Appalachian and Rocky Mountain states, including a small operation in Northern Virginia, and basically involve pipelines linking wells with major interstate routes, storage facilities and processing plants.
Dominion will receive $4 billion in cash and will transfer some $5.7 billion of debt to Berkshire Hathaway
