By David Kirk, Times West Virginian
FAIRMONT, W.Va. — A familiar name in West Virginia natural gas has new owners and a new name.
Dominion Energy sold its subsidiary Dominion Energy West Virginia to Illinois-based Ullico/Hearthstone Utilities Inc. for $690 million in February 2022 and the sale and name change are official Sept. 1.
Hearthstone, which will operate in West Virginia as Hope Gas, owns 15 water utilities and five gas utilities across the nation. With this latest purchase, Hearthstone owns six gas utilities.
Hearthstone CEO Morgan O’Brien plans to expand job opportunities and infrastructure at Hope Gas.
“There’s a lot of gas here in West Virginia. The Marcellus and Utica Shales are — depending who you talk to — the largest gas reserves in the world, but definitely the largest in the United States,” O’Brien said. “The journey in energy has been going from coal to natural gas, and for others it’s from gas to renewables.” …
