A US federal appeals court has dealt another setback to Dominion Energy's 15.5 bcm/year Atlantic Coast natural gas pipeline by throwing out permits that authorized the project to cross two national forests and a major hiking trail in the Appalachian region, on grounds that the company needs to preserve national forest resources. Dominion Energy reacted and announced it will appeal the court's decision. This is not the first time the project is halted over serious environmental concerns and the in-service date has already been pushed from the end of 2019 to mid-2020 due to regulatory setbacks and construction delays.
The 972 km long Atlantic Coast gas pipeline will deliver fracked natural gas from the West Virginia producing assets down to North Carolina and Virginia. It will improve gas supply to eastern states, where the population growth and the replacement of ageing coal-fired power plants with a new fleet of gas-fired plants are expected to significantly increase gas demand over the next two decades.
It is developed by a joint venture between Dominion Atlantic Coast Pipeline (Dominion Resources, 48%), Duke Energy ACP (40%), Piedmont NACP Company (a subsidiary of Duke Energy, 7%) and Maple Enterprise Holdings (an affiliate of Southern Company, 5%).