Ldcs

After closing the acquisition of one of West Virginia’s largest local natural gas distribution companies (LDC) from Dominion Energy Inc., Hearthstone Holdings Inc. is headed to the Mountain State. Hearthstone and Dominion disclosed Thursday the companies had closed the sale of Hope Gas Inc., which does business as Dominion Energy West Virginia, to Hearthstone for…

Natural gas utilities can help lead the transition to a carbonless energy future in the United States, Sempra Energy CEO Jeffrey Martin said last week.  California, where two of Sempra’s three major U.S. utilities operate, has a regulatory proceeding to develop a strategy for a phased approach to developing a multi-decade strategy for gas. Martin…

New regulations in Massachusetts, which received input from several local distribution companies (LDC), would require the utilities to repair some of the most severe underground pipeline leaks within two or three years.

Local distribution companies’ (LDC) rusty old steel pipes have a silver lining: they offer organic growth opportunities that can often be easily financed through the rate base, according to Fitch Ratings. This is helping make LDCs the growth play in the broader utilities sector.

More residential energy consumers are turning to natural gas, but gas consumption growth is trailing the increase in customers due to energy efficiency…

More residential energy consumers are turning to natural gas, but gas consumption growth is trailing the increase in customers due to energy efficiency and conservation, Fitch Ratings said. Still, the outlook for local distribution companies (LDC) is good, given an improved regulatory environment and the adoption of revenue decoupling and weather normalization mechanisms.

Domestic natural gas demand is falling even as supplies proliferate, but the local distribution company (LDC) market could be reinvigorated if regulations put in place long before the boom in unconventional supplies are updated, IHS Inc. energy analysts found.

Gas distributors across the northwestern U.S. — from Washington state to Colorado — were back in a normal operations mode Friday, at the same time adding up record natural gas send-outs prompted by a freezing arctic storm that drove through the region at the beginning of the week.

Gas and winter power demand records fell throughout the eastern United States during the week ending Jan. 24, according to multiple local gas distribution companies, power utilities, electric grid operators and pipeline companies. Williams subsidiary Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line (Transco), which serves the entire East Coast region, said last week that it set a new peak gas transportation record on seven out of 10 days from Jan. 15-24.