Big article; never mentions that the BLM has required that this pipeline project be put on hold due to lack of data related to ecology/geology impacts..... ".....If the deal goes through, Southern will acquire the 5% interest that AGL, also based in Georgia, owns in the 550-mile pipeline. The ACP is designed to transport natural gas from the Utica and Marcellus shale fields in the Northeast through a transport point in West Virginia to southeastern Virginia and North Carolina. In some ways, the deal is part of the general consolidation in the energy industry that led Duke (NYSE:DUK) to buy Progress Energy Inc. in 2012 and Chicago-based Exelon to propose buying Washington-based Pepco Holdings (a deal that may fall apart with the district’s Public Service Commission recent ruling against it). Declining coal But the deal is also a part of the power industry’s move away from coal and to natural gas as a fuel for producing electricity. AGL’s pipeline network in Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Virginia and New Jersey — in addition to its ACP ownership — will create opportunities for Southern, which owns utilities in Alabama, Florida, Georgia and Mississippi...." ''.....The pipeline was designed largely to meet demand for Duke and Dominion in the Carolinas and Virginia and to provide additional gas for Piedmont in the Carolinas and AGL in Virginia....."