I don’t understand some of the regulatory bits at the end, but it seems to me there is a question here, along the lines of, if the demand isn’t there, why does Dominion want to build the ACP?

The answer is that building pipelines is more profitable than anything else Dominion can do, with that guaranteed 14% profit (unless the VA regulators block it, which they could, and this article makes it look like VA regulators have been doing their job, who could have expected such a thing?) So it works out even if Transco is idled by the new pipeline.

But I suspect the real answer is something else, a word not spoken in polite company in Virginia but shouted repeatedly in gas industry conferences in Pittsburgh: EXPORT. That’s what the gas companies are hoping for, and Dominion hopes to facilitate. Dominion doesn’t need domestic customers if it can profit from gas export–but it doesn’t look good to talk about that while you’re charging your VA customers for the pipeline’s costs and ramming it through their backyards and across their rivers.

Mary Wildfire, Roane County, WV