City Council president Darrell Clarke has an alternative plan in mind for Philadelphia Gas Works.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that “Clarke favored a public-private partnership concept in which the city retained ownership of PGW, but he could not reveal specifics.”

The statement comes more that week after UIL Holdings Corp. decided to terminate its $1.86 billion offer to buy PGW, purchase that was part of a two-year effort by Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter to privatize the nation's largest municipal gas utility.

Law360 reported that although “private ownership of PGW would likely help better position the company to take full advantage of the region's proximity to cheap supplies of natural gas from the Marcellus and Utica shale plays, industry experts said axing the $1.86 billion deal with UIL Holdings Corp. was not likely to dim the region's rising star as a national energy hub.”

Nutter expects Clarke to publish in full detail his public-partnership plan and stated that no partnership deal can match the benefits that his deal would have brought to Philly.