Work Underway On New FirstEnergy Transmission Substation In West Virginia To Support Shale Gas Industry And Enhance Mon Power Service Reliability

Fairmont, WV /PRNewswire/ - Construction is underway on a new FirstEnergy Corp. (NYSE: FE) transmission substation in Doddridge County, West Virginia, to support the electric demands of the area's rapidly expanding Marcellus Shale gas industry and help enhance service reliability for Mon Power's customers in Doddridge and neighboring counties.

As part of the construction process, crews recently completed the foundation work and erected steel structures at the new 11 acre substation site near Sherwood, W. Va. The $36 million project also includes a short transmission line to connect the new substation with an existing 138-kilovolt (kV) line located nearby.

In addition to supporting the MarkWest Sherwood natural gas processing facility, the new substation and line will reinforce the regional transmission system and is also expected to benefit more than 6,000 Mon Power customers along the U.S. Route 50 corridor inDoddridge, Harrison and Ritchie counties.

"FirstEnergy's infrastructure enhancements help support the increased Marcellus gas activity in West Virginia," said Holly Kauffman, FirstEnergy's president of West Virginia Operations. "With the natural gas industry bringing new employment and business development opportunities to the state, FirstEnergy and Mon Power will keep pace by continuing to upgrade our system to meet this growing demand for safe and reliable electric service."

The new substation will be connected to MarkWest's Sherwood processing facility via two, four-mile transmission lines. The plant is a midstream processing facility that separates natural gas into dry and liquid components. The refinement and separation processes typically use large amounts of electricity. The new substation has been designed so that it can be expanded in the future to accommodate additional load growth at the MarkWest facility.

The new substation is expected to be completed and operational in December 2014. Trans-Allegheny Interstate Line Company, a FirstEnergy transmission affiliate, will build and own the substation. Mon Power will own the short transmission line connecting to the existing 138-kV line, as well as some metering equipment inside the substation.

Mon Power serves about 385,000 customers in 34 West Virginia counties. Visit FirstEnergy on the internet at www.firstenergycorp.com, and follow Mon Power on Twitter @MonPowerWV.

FirstEnergy is a diversified energy company dedicated to safety, reliability and operational excellence. Its 10 electric distribution companies form one of the nation's largest investor-owned electric systems, serving customers in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, West Virginia, Maryland and New York. Follow FirstEnergy on Twitter @FirstEnergyCorp.

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Actual results may differ materially due to the speed and nature of increased competition in the electric utility industry, in general, and the retail sales market in particular; the impact of the regulatory process on the pending matters before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and in the various states in which we do business including, but not limited to, matters related to rates and pending rate cases; the uncertainties of various cost recovery and cost allocation issues resulting from American Transmission Systems, Incorporated's realignment into PJM Interconnection LLC; economic or weather conditions affecting future sales and margins; regulatory outcomes associated with storm restoration, including but not limited to Hurricane Sandy, Hurricane Irene and the October snowstorm of 2011; changing energy, capacity and commodity market prices including, but not limited to, coal, natural gas and oil, and availability and their impact on retail margins; the continued ability of our regulated utilities to recover their costs; costs being higher than anticipated and the success of our policies to control costs and to mitigate low energy, capacity and market prices; other legislative and regulatory changes, and revised environmental requirements, including possible greenhouse gas emission, water discharge, water intake and coal combustion residual regulations, the potential impacts of Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR), and/or any laws, rules or regulations that ultimately replace CAIR, and the effects of the United States Environmental Protection Agency's Mercury and Air Toxics Standards rules including our estimated costs of compliance; the uncertainty of the timing and amounts of the capital expenditures that may arise in connection with any litigation, including New Source Review litigation or potential regulatory initiatives or rulemakings (including that such expenditures could result in our decision to deactivate or idle certain generating units); the uncertainties associated with the deactivation of certain older regulated and competitive fossil units including the impact on vendor commitments, and the timing thereof as they relate to, among other things, Reliability Must-Run arrangements and the reliability of the transmission grid; adverse regulatory or legal decisions and outcomes with respect to our nuclear operations (including, but not limited to the revocation or non-renewal of necessary licenses, approvals or operating permits by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission or as a result of the incident at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant); issues arising from the indications of cracking in the shield building at Davis-Besse; the impact of future changes to the operational status or availability of our generating units; the risks and uncertainties associated with litigation, arbitration, mediation and like proceedings, including, but not limited to, any such proceedings related to vendor commitments; replacement power costs being higher than anticipated or not fully hedged; the ability to comply with applicable state and federal reliability standards and energy efficiency and peak demand reduction mandates; changes in customers' demand for power, including but not limited to, changes resulting from the implementation of state and federal energy efficiency and peak demand reduction mandates; the ability to accomplish or realize anticipated benefits from strategic and financial goals including, but not limited to, the ability to reduce costs and to successfully complete our announced financial plans designed to improve our credit metrics and strengthen our balance sheet, including but not limited to, proposed capital raising and debt reduction initiatives, and the proposed sale of non-core hydro assets; our ability to improve electric commodity margins and the impact of, among other factors, the increased cost of fuel and fuel transportation on such margins; the ability to experience growth in the Regulated Distribution and Regulated Transmission segments and to continue to successfully implement our direct retail sales strategy in the Competitive Energy Services segment; changing market conditions that could affect the measurement of liabilities and the value of assets held in our Nuclear Decommissioning Trusts, pension trusts and other trust funds, and cause us and our subsidiaries to make additional contributions sooner, or in amounts that are larger than currently anticipated; the impact of changes to material accounting policies; the ability to access the public securities and other capital and credit markets in accordance with our announced financial plan, the cost of such capital and overall condition of the capital and credit markets affecting us and our subsidiaries; actions that may be taken by credit rating agencies that could negatively affect us and our subsidiaries' access to financing, increase the costs thereof, and increase requirements to post additional collateral to support outstanding commodity positions, letters of credit and other financial guarantees; changes in national and regional economic conditions affecting us, our subsidiaries and our major industrial and commercial customers, and other counterparties including fuel suppliers, with which we do business; issues concerning the stability of domestic and foreign financial institutions and counterparties with which we do business; the risks and other factors discussed from time to time in our United States Securities and Exchange Commission filings, and other similar factors. The foregoing review of factors should not be construed as exhaustive. New factors emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for management to predict all such factors, nor assess the impact of any such factor on FirstEnergy's business or the extent to which any factor, or combination of factors, may cause results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statements. FirstEnergy expressly disclaims any current intention to update, except as required by law, any forward-looking statements contained herein as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.