Mountain Valley Pipeline Takes Bite from NextEra Energy's Earnings

April 22, 2022--Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--NextEra Energy Incorporated (NYSE:NEE) (Juno Beach, Florida) may regret that it became involved with the Mountain Valley Pipeline, a natural gas pipeline under construction between West Virginia and Virginia. In the just-passed first quarter of 2022, the company said it will exit the project, which has been plagued with problems, challenges and cost overruns since it began; hence, a $653 million impairment charge for exiting the project made its way into the company's first-quarter financial results. However, the company isn't letting the impairment charge hinder its plans for the power sector. NextEra is continuing one of the largest buildouts of wind, solar and battery storage of any U.S. power company.

NextEra began reevaluating its position in Mountain Valley about midway through the first quarter after the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a government permit allowing the pipeline to pass through the Jefferson National Forest on the West Virginia-Virginia border as well as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's assessment of the pipeline's impact on two species of endangered fish. NextEra decided to exit the project, helping bring its first-quarter earnings from $1.66 billion in first-quarter 2021 to a net loss of $451 million in the corresponding quarter of 2022. Adjusted earnings, which take the impairment charge into account, were $1.45 billion in the recently passed quarter, compared with $1.33 billion in first-quarter 2022.