US energy utility Dominion Energy has completed the acquisition of South Carolina utility SCANA for US$6.8bn and has also absorbed around US$6.6bn in debt.
Dominion was the sole buyer that expressed interest in SCANA, after SCANA's subsidiary, South Carolina & Gas, and Santee Cooper have abandoned the construction of the nuclear reactor of at the V.C. Summer Nuclear Station; as over 737,000 costumers had paid US$2bn for the project, this decision generated multiple lawsuits. Even though credit is being granted to those consumers in their energy bill, they will remain contributing to the project for the next 20 years.
The combined company will carry out operations in 18 states from Connecticut to California. It will have an installed power capacity of 33,000 MW and will operate 93,600 miles (150 600 km) of power transmission and distribution lines along with 106,400 miles (171,200 km) of gas pipelines and 1 Tcf (28 bcm) of gas storage capacity. Dominion is now one of the largest electric and gas utilities in the US with 7.5 m customers.