Piedmont Natural Gas Joins Dominion in Greenbrier Pipeline.

Business Editors

RICHMOND, Va., and CHARLOTTE, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 4, 2001

Piedmont Natural Gas (NYSE:PNY) has joined Dominion (NYSE:D) in a new equity venture, Greenbrier Pipeline Company, LLC, which is proposing a 263-mile interstate pipeline linking multiple natural gas supply basins and storage to growing demand in residential, commercial, industrial and power generation markets in the Southeast.

A subsidiary of Charlotte-based Piedmont Natural Gas has become a 33-percent equity owner of Greenbrier Pipeline Company. A subsidiary of Dominion retains a 67-percent equity ownership in the project. The Greenbrier Pipeline, which was originally announced by Dominion last October, will originate in Kanawha County, West Virginia, with connections to Dominion Transmission and Tennessee Gas Pipeline. The pipeline will extend through southwest Virginia and into Granville County, North Carolina. The $497 million pipeline, which will be designed, constructed and operated by Dominion Transmission, will be project-financed by the project owners.

"Piedmont's management team is a solid, progressive, forward-thinking group that recognizes the importance of adding new energy infrastructure to a rapidly growing region," said Thos. E. Capps, chairman, president and chief executive officer of Dominion. "We welcome Piedmont as a partner and as a customer. Greenbrier Pipeline will provide significant new competitive supply choices for consumers throughout the region."

"Piedmont is looking forward to its association with Dominion in the Greenbrier project," said Ware Schiefer, president and chief executive officer of Piedmont Natural Gas. "Dominion's commitment to site generation in North Carolina will bring significant benefits to both natural gas and electricity consumers. We also appreciate Dominion's pledge to work with the communities along the pipeline right-of-way to ensure a safe and environmentally sensitive project."

The initial capacity of the Greenbrier pipeline will be 600,000 dekatherms of natural gas per day. Gas supplies delivered from Dominion Transmission and Tennessee Gas Pipeline into Greenbrier near Charleston, W.V., could come from the Appalachian, Canadian, Gulf Coast and Mid-Continent regions as well as make use of the vast storage services already provided by Dominion Transmission. A segment of the Greenbrier Pipeline is expected to be ready for service by the second quarter of 2005 to meet power generation market requirements, with the remainder completed by the fourth quarter of 2005 to satisfy the market requirements of local natural gas utilities. The FERC certificate application for the project will be filed in the first quarter 2002.

Details about the Greenbrier Pipeline can be found by going to Dominion's Web site, www.dom.com, and entering the keyword "Greenbrier."

Dominion, headquartered in Richmond, Va., is one of the nation's largest producers of energy, with a production capability of 2.7 trillion British thermal units of energy per day. The company has a power generation portfolio of more than 21,000 megawatts, which is expected to grow to more than 28,000 megawatts by 2005. Dominion is one of the largest independent oil and natural gas exploration and production companies in North America, with nearly 3 trillion cubic feet of equivalent reserves. The company has 7,600 miles of interstate natural gas pipeline and a delivery capability of 6.3 billion cubic feet per day. In addition, the company operates the nation's largest underground natural gas storage system, with over 950 billion cubic feet of storage capacity. Dominion serves nearly 4 million retail natural gas and electric customers. Dominion also has a managing equity interest in Dominion Fiber Ventures LLC, owner of Dominion Telecom. Dominion Telecom is expanding its fiber-optic network from 35,000 fiber miles (3,600 route miles) to more than 800,000 fiber miles (9,000 route miles). For more information about Dominion, visit the company's Web site at www.dom.com.

Piedmont Natural Gas is an energy and services company primarily engaged in the transportation, distribution and sale of natural gas to over 700,000 residential, commercial and industrial customers in North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee. The Charlotte-based company is the second-largest natural gas utility in the Southeast. An unregulated subsidiary of the Company is an equity participant in a venture that markets natural gas to an additional 570,000 customers in Georgia, the first state in the venture's eight-state region to deregulate retail natural gas service. Another unregulated subsidiary is an equity participant in Heritage Propane Partners, L.P., the nation's fourth-largest propane distributor serving more than 500,000 customers in twenty-eight states. For more information about Piedmont, visit the company's Web site at www.piedmontng.com.