Following the failure of Congressional proposals to mandate completion of the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), the company announced moves retreating from its plans for a North Carolina addition to the MVP known as the Southgate extension.

The Southgate extension was to push a pipeline carrying the fracked gas from the MVP south from Virginia into North Carolina’s central Piedmont region. Following the continuing setbacks for the MVP itself in Congress and the State of Virginia, the MVP company has withdrawn eminent domain legal actions for land in Rockingham and Alamance counties. 

The MVP company denies that its legal move signals that it has abandoned plans to build the Southgate extension, but opponents still cheered the legal retreat of the pipeline’s legal efforts.