A San Francisco-based private investment group will go through with a $780 million purchase of a Pennsylvania natural gas operation from Dominion Resources, capping a rocky sales process that began in July 2008 and bringing about 75 jobs to the region.

PH Gas, a subsidiary of SteelRiver Infrastructure Fund North America, expects to complete the deal to buy Dominion Peoples Natural Gas in February.

The move is expected to bring about 75 jobs to the region, said SteelRiver chief executive Chris Kinney. During the next 18 months, SteelRiver will staff a new Pittsburgh-area call center and also fill mid- and senior-level positions.

Dominion Peoples is Pittsburgh's largest natural gas company, with about 359,000 residences and businesses as customers. It covers 16 counties in Western Pennsylvania, stretching as far east as Altoona. The company headquarters is in Wilkinsburg.

About 525 Dominion employees currently working in 10 offices throughout the coverage area will now work for SteelRiver, said Dominion spokesman Dan Donovan.

The 75 new positions are coming from Mr. Kinney's plans to make Dominion a "stand-alone, Pittsburgh-based operation."

That means hiring management to handle the duties that formerly fell to executives at Dominion Resources headquarters in Richmond, Va. SteelRiver also plans to terminate a contract with a call center in North Carolina and move that operation to the area.

Mr. Kinney said the settlement with the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission requires SteelRiver to improve customer service. The first objectives: cutting call-response time and shortening the amount of time people spend waiting for a phone representative.

However, "there will be absolutely no change in rates as a result of this transaction," he said.

This is the second time SteelRiver has bid to buy Dominion Peoples. In March 2006, Dominion Resources announced a deal that would have sold Dominion Peoples to Equitable Gas. SteelRiver also had attempted to buy Dominion Peoples, but lost out to Equitable. However, concerns from customers and regulators about Equitable's new market share led the companies to cancel the deal in January 2008. When Dominion Peoples went back on the market, SteelRiver resubmitted a bid and won.

Dominion Resources plans to use the money from the sale to pay down debt.

"We owe money just like everybody else," Mr. Donovan said.

Dominion Peoples's sister company, Hope Gas Inc. in West Virginia, was supposed to be sold along with Peoples in a deal worth a total of $910 million. The West Virginia Public Service Commission shot down that part of the deal in late December, saying a proposed rate increase included in the petition totaling $7.2 million "would not be offset by benefits" for customers.

Meanwhile, the Public Utility Commission approved the sale of Peoples in November, and the Federal Trade Commission signed off in October.

Following the sale of the Dominion Peoples division, Dominion Resources will partner its Dominion Hope operation with Dominion East Ohio under one natural gas distribution wing.

The news comes days after Dominion Peoples announced a rate hike for the next three-month quarter in its gas cost recovery rate to $6.36 per thousand cubic feet (mcf), up from the $5.89 charged in the last quarter. The average Dominion customer will face a monthly bill of about $80.

Its main competitors, Equitable Gas and Columbia Gas, also posted rate increases.

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