Page 15 - NorthAmOil Week 27

NorthAmOil PIPELINES & TRANSPORT NorthAmOil

In the press release, Dominion and Duke noted feedback from local communities, labour and
that they had recently scored an important legal industrial leaders, government and permitting
victory last month, when the US Supreme Court agencies, environmental interests and social
ruled that the federal government did have the justice organisations. We express sincere appre-
authority to permit the construction of the link ciation for the tireless efforts and important con-
under a section of the Appalachian Trail. This tributions made by all who were involved in this
7-2 decision served to overturn a lower court’s essential project,” they said.
ruling that had blocked work on ACP, thereby They added: “This announcement reflects
“[vindicating] the project and decisions made by the increasing legal uncertainty that overhangs
permitting agencies,” the partners noted. large-scale energy and industrial infrastruc-
They went on to say, though, that the project ture development in the United States. Until
was facing additional legal hurdles. Specifically, these issues are resolved, the ability to satisfy
they pointed to the Ninth Circuit Court’s May the country’s energy needs will be significantly
28 ruling on the decision by the US District challenged.” ™
Court for the District of Montana to overturn
Nationwide Permit 12, under which the federal
government has long had the authority to per-
mit waterbody and wetland crossings. That rul-
ing indicates that Dominion Energy and Duke
Energy are not likely to succeed in their appeal
against the verdict concerning Nationwide Per-
mit 12, they said.
“This new information and litigation risk …
make the project too uncertain to justify invest-
ing more shareholder capital,” the partners said.
They also noted that ACP was still facing “[a]
series of legal challenges to the project’s federal
and state permits.” These lawsuits have already
led to “significant project cost increases and tim-
ing delays” and could throw work on the pipe-
line even further off schedule, they reported.
Thomas F. Farrell II, the chairman, presi-
dent and CEO of Dominion, and Lynn J. Good,
chairperson, president and CEO of Duke, both
expressed regret at the cancellation. “For almost
six years, we have worked diligently and invested
billions of dollars to complete the project and
deliver the much-needed infrastructure to our
customers and communities. Throughout, we
have engaged extensively with and incorporated The gas line will run through three states/Atlantic Coast Pipeline

PERFORMANCE
ExxonMobil reports another quarterly loss

EXXONMOBIL is on track to post two con- The US-based giant is not due to publish a
secutive quarterly losses for the first time in its full report on its quarterly results until the end
history. of this month. But the data it has released so far
According to a regulatory filing dated June reflect the havoc that the coronavirus (COVID-
2, the US super-major said that its upstream 19) pandemic and the Saudi-Russian oil price
oil and gas unit had sustained a loss of $3.1bn war have wrought on the oil and gas industry,
in the second quarter of 2020, while its down- which has seen demand and prices plummet as
stream refining unit lost $611mn. The company a result of lockdowns and other restrictive public
also indicated that its chemical unit had earned health measures.
a small profit of $144mn during the April-June That disruption was already evident in Exx-
period and said it had written down almost $3bn onMobil’s first-quarter report, which came out
worth of inventory. at a time when world crude oil prices were sink-
ExxonMobil said in the filing that it had sus- ing but not yet in free-fall. That report showed
tained an overall loss of $610mn for the quarter. the company posting its first quarterly loss since
By contrast, it reported a $2.35bn profit for the 1988. Now the firm has experienced its first-ever
same period of 2019. back-to-back quarterly loss.

Week 27 09•July•2020 www. NEWSBASE .com P15