January 17, 2002

CHICAGO — Peoples Energy Corporation (NYSE: PGL) and Dominion (NYSE: D) today announced an alliance to market retail gas and electricity to the nearly 3,000,000 residential consumers in Chicago and Northern Illinois. Residential customers in the region can begin to select their energy provider beginning in May 2002.

Under the agreement, Dominion’s retail marketing arm, Dominion Retail, Inc. and Peoples Energy subsidiary Peoples Energy Services will jointly perform marketing and customer service for residential natural gas and electricity customers in the Chicago area.

“This alliance leverages the respective strengths of both companies to meet the energy needs of households throughout the dynamic metropolitan Chicago market,” said Tom Patrick, president and COO of Peoples Energy. “The Peoples-Dominion alliance promises residential customers excellent service and stable prices.”

“Through experience, we know customer choice programs won’t work unless they bring consumers reliable energy products and services at competitive prices,” said Thomas F. Farrell, chief executive officer of Dominion Energy. “Our cost-efficient approach to marketing can deliver the savings and stability promised by customer choice programs. This is part of Dominion’s overall plan to balance its energy producing assets with retail customers who actually use energy, and is a key component in our price risk management program.”

This alliance is the second partnering between Peoples Energy and Dominion, building upon their successful joint development of power generation assets. Through Elwood Energy, LLC., the partners co-own and operate a 1350-megawatt gas-fired power plant 60 miles southwest of Chicago. Elwood began operations in 1999, and is one of the largest independent peaking power generation facilities in the country.

Dominion is one of the most experienced residential energy marketers in the nation and its "choice" programs have brought savings to hundreds of thousands of customers. It has conducted over 200 campaigns since 1997 and has over 700,000 retail customer accounts for natural gas, electricity and related products and services.

Peoples Energy is a diversified energy company comprised of five primary business segments: Gas Distribution, Power Generation, Midstream Services, Retail Energy Services, and Oil and Gas Production. The Gas Distribution business serves about 1 million retail customers in Chicago and northeastern Illinois. Visit the Peoples Energy web site at PeoplesEnergy.com.

Dominion is one of the nation’s largest producers of energy, with a production capability of more than 3 trillion British thermal units of energy per day. Dominion serves nearly 4 million retail natural gas and electric customers in five states. For more information about Dominion, visit the company’s web site at www.dom.com. .