In November rumors swirled that WGL Holdings, the umbrella company that owns Washington (DC) Gas Light Company and WGL Midstream, is considering selling itself to utility giant (and Spanish-based) Iberdrola (see DC NatGas Utility WGL Considers Selling Itself to Spanish Company). Although Iberdrola was sniffing around, apparently they didn’t offer enough money. WGL announced yesterday that instead of selling itself to Ibedrola, it is selling itself to Canadian-based AltaGas Ltd.–for US$6.4 billion. OK, so what does that have to do with the Marcellus/Utica? Plenty. For one, WGL’s midstream (pipeline) subsidiary will be one of the important ways nearly half a billion cubic feet of Marcellus gas will get to the Cove Point LNG facility in Maryland when that facility goes online later this year (see WGL & Antero to Provide Marcellus Gas to India via Cove Point). Second, WGL is the owner of 10% of the Mountain Valley Pipeline project, a $3.5 billion, 301-mile pipeline that will run from Wetzel County, WV to the Transco Pipeline in Pittsylvania County, VA (see WGL Midstream Buys More of Mountain Valley Pipeline). And third, WGL (the utility) is buying and using Marcellus gas for its customers in the Washington, DC area. At one point the utility tried to buy 25 of its own Marcellus wells, a plan rejected by Virginia regulators (see Virginia Rejects Deal for DC-based Utility to Buy Marcellus Wells). So yeah, this is a big deal with implications for the Marcellus…
