A newly completed feasibility study confirms that costs driven by mountainous terrain and distance from existing natural gas service remain the principle challenges to the viability of extending natural gas service to Low Moor, VA. The natural gas line would have to be extended from the Pitzer Ridge area of Covington, VA.
Heath and Associates, a Shelby, N.C.-based engineering firm that conducted the feasibility study for Alleghany County, places the estimated cost for constructing a natural gas system to the Alleghany Regional Commerce Center in Low Moor at $15.6 million. Columbia Gas of Virginia’s latest estimate is $26.5 million.
Due to the limited number of customers in the Low Moor area, the study projects that county would have to provide a subsidy of up to $975,403 per year to offset operating deficits.
The county also evaluated an option that would involve trucking compressed natural gas to the commerce center but the delivered cost exceeds propane and fuel-oil prices.
For more information read the front page story in the October 5, 2017 Virginian Review.