| Dominion Resources says its first-quarter net income soared 25 percent, exceeding Wall Street's expectations.
The company has historic links to Calhoun County, known to most old-timers as Hope Natural Gas Company.
The Richmond, Virginia-based company says higher-than-expected oil production in the Gulf of Mexico has helped with the earnings.
Dominion earned $534 million dollars - or $1.53 a share -
in the quarter ending March 31st. That's up from $429
million dollars a year-ago.
In March, Dominion announced plans to sell two natural gas distribution utilities to Pittsburgh-based Equitable Resources for approximately 970 million dollars.
The utilities are Pittsburgh-based Dominion Peoples and Clarksburg, West Virginia-based Dominion Hope, which has about 116,000 customers in West Virginia.
Dominion Chairman and CEO Thomas E. Capps was paid $7.22 million in salary and perks before his recent retirement.
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