March 7, 2006

NEW ORLEANS – Dominion Exploration and Production (E&P), a wholly owned subsidiary of Dominion (NYSE: D), has begun production from the Rigel and Seventeen Hands fields, located about 120 miles southeast of New Orleans in the deep waters of Mississippi Canyon Blocks 296 and 299, respectively. The Rigel field is in 5,200 feet and the Seventeen Hands field is in 5,800 feet of water.

"Rigel and Seventeen Hands are examples of Dominion’s diverse offshore operations," said Duane Radtke, president and CEO of Dominion E&P. "These fields will add to our increasing natural gas production from the Gulf of Mexico."

Both fields are operated by Dominion and employ subsea tiebacks to pre-existing infrastructure owned by Chevron.

"We are very appreciative of Chevron’s work in repairing hurricane damage to the host platform, Viosca Knoll 900," said Kevin Guilbeau, senior vice president and general manager of Dominion E&P’s offshore business unit. "Now that superstructure is restored and the tiebacks are complete, we are able to commence production from these highly porous and permeable reservoirs."

The combined design rate for the two fields is 160 million cubic feet of gas per day (mmcfd). Dominion operates both fields and owns 53 percent of Rigel and 38 percent of Seventeen Hands. Dominion’s partners in Rigel are Mariner Energy and Newfield Exploration. Seventeen Hands partners are Murphy Oil Corporation and Hydro Gulf of Mexico LLC.

Dominion is one of the nation's largest producers of energy, with an energy portfolio of about 28,100 megawatts of generation, about 6.3 trillion cubic feet equivalent of proved natural gas reserves and 7,800 miles of natural gas transmission pipeline. Dominion also operates the nation's largest underground natural gas storage system with more than 950 billion cubic feet of storage capacity and serves retail energy customers in nine states. For more information about Dominion, visit the company's Web site at www.dom.com.

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