RICHMOND, Va., Jan. 13, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The following
statement was issued by Dominion Energy spokesperson Karl Neddenien in response to the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the Fourth Circuit's order, issued on Friday, January 11, 2019, that denied Atlantic
Coast Pipeline's motion for clarification on the court's stay of
the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service's Biological Opinion and
Incidental Take Statement:
"We fully stand behind the Fish & Wildlife Service's
authorization for this project. We believe the agency thoroughly
addressed the issues in this case in the revised Biological Opinion
and new Incidental Take Statement in September. In developing this
project over the last four years, we have taken extraordinary care
to protect the sensitive species at issue in this case. We will
vigorously defend the agency's decisions and the measures we've
taken to protect the species in oral arguments before the court in
March.
"The issues in this case involve a narrow scope of the project –
only four species that occupy roughly 100 miles in West Virginia and Virginia. We voluntarily suspended work on the
project in early December after the Fourth Circuit temporarily
stayed our revised Biological Opinion and new Incidental Take
Statement so that we could get clarification on the impact of the
stay order. The court's denial of our request to clarify the
stay order is an interim order and not a decision on the overall
merits of the case.
"Public utilities are depending on the ACP to generate cleaner
electricity and provide more affordable, reliable energy to
millions of consumers and businesses. Delaying the project will
only force consumers and businesses to pay higher energy costs and
slow down the transition to cleaner energy. Consumers are already
paying higher energy costs than they should and major industries
are having their natural gas service shut off during the winter
months. We cannot solve these challenges without new
infrastructure."
Dominion Energy remains confident in the full completion of the
Atlantic Coast Pipeline given the critical customer need and a
route that has been exhaustively studied and permitted.
In investor materials published on January 10, 2019, (available on the Dominion
Energy investor relations website), Dominion Energy provided
updates that included:
- The expectation that, based on ACP construction recommencing by
the second quarter of 2019, the near-term earnings contribution
from ACP will be modestly lower than had been expected prior to
late 2018 work stoppages due to lower near-term capital investment
in the project
- The expectation that, given this ACP development and other
modest headwinds including related to pension expense, the company
will achieve at least the lower half of the 6% to 8% 2017-2020
compounded annual growth rate guidance range
Additional information pertaining to the company's operating
earnings guidance as provided in the January
10, 2019 investor materials can be found in the graphic
herein which will also be available on the Dominion
Energy Investor Relations website under the title "Investor
materials --- January 2019
Supplement" at the following link:
http://investors.dominionenergy.com/events-and-presentations.
About Dominion Energy
Nearly 7.5 million customers in
18 states energize their homes and businesses with electricity or
natural gas from Dominion Energy (NYSE: D), headquartered in
Richmond, Va. The company is
committed to sustainable, reliable, affordable, and safe energy and
is one of the nation's largest producers and transporters of energy
with about $100 billion of assets
providing electric generation, transmission and distribution, as
well as natural gas storage, transmission, distribution, and
import/export services. As one of the nation's leading solar
operators, the company intends to reduce its carbon intensity 60
percent by 2030. Through its Dominion Energy Charitable Foundation,
as well as EnergyShare and other programs, Dominion Energy
contributed more than $30 million in
2018 to community causes throughout its footprint and beyond.
Please visit www.DominionEnergy.com, to learn more.
This release contains certain forward-looking statements,
including forecasted operating earnings for full-year 2018 and
beyond which are subject to various risks and uncertainties.
Factors that could cause actual results to differ include, but are
not limited to: unusual weather conditions and their effect on
energy sales to customers and energy commodity prices; extreme
weather events and other natural disasters; federal, state and
local legislative and regulatory developments; changes to federal,
state and local environmental laws and regulations, including
proposed carbon regulations; cost of environmental compliance;
changes in enforcement practices of regulators relating to
environmental standards and litigation exposure for remedial
activities; capital market conditions, including the availability
of credit and the ability to obtain financing on reasonable terms;
fluctuations in interest rates; changes in rating agency
requirements or credit ratings and their effect on availability and
cost of capital; impacts of acquisitions, divestitures, transfers
of assets by Dominion Energy to joint ventures, and retirements of
assets based on asset portfolio reviews; receipt of approvals for,
and timing of, closing dates for other acquisitions and
divestitures; changes in demand for Dominion Energy's services;
additional competition in Dominion Energy's industries; changes to
regulated rates collected by Dominion Energy; changes in operating,
maintenance and construction costs; timing and receipt of
regulatory approvals necessary for planned construction or
expansion projects and compliance with conditions associated with
such regulatory approvals and the inability to complete planned
construction projects within time frames initially
anticipated. Other risk factors are detailed from time
to time in Dominion Energy's quarterly reports on Form 10-Q or most
recent annual report on Form 10-K filed with the Securities and
Exchange Commission.
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SOURCE Dominion Energy