Property, Plant And Equipment

9 Months Ended

Sep. 30, 2020

Property, Plant And Equipment [Abstract]

Property, Plant And Equipment

(6) Property, Plant and Equipment:

Property, plant and equipment, net is as follows:

($ in millions)	September 30, 2020		December 31, 2019
Property, plant and equipment	$	27,355	$	26,552
Less: Accumulated depreciation		(14,497)		(13,589)
Property, plant and equipment, net	$	12,858	$	12,963	(1)

⁽¹⁾Excludes $1,049 million classified as Held for Sale as of December 31, 2019.

In connection with the adoption of ASU No. 2016 – 02, “Leases (Topic 842)”, the $15 million ($11 million net of tax) of unamortized deferred gains that had resulted from certain sale leaseback transactions were recognized directly to opening accumulated deficit as of January 1, 2019.

In January 2019, we closed the sale of certain wireless towers for approximately $76 million. The aggregate carrying value of the towers was approximately $1 million, resulting in a gain on sale of $75 million which was recognized against “Accumulated Depreciation” in our consolidated balance sheet during 2019.

Depreciation expense is principally based on the composite group method. Depreciation expense was as follows:

	For the three months ended September 30,				For the nine months ended September 30,
($ in millions)	2020		2019		2020		2019
Depreciation expense	$	311	$	321	$	941	$	1,016

Effective with the designation of the Northwest Operations as held-for-sale on May 28, 2019, we discontinued recording depreciation on Property, Plant and Equipment and finite-lived intangible assets of this business as required by GAAP.

We revised the estimated remaining useful lives for certain plant assets as of October 1, 2019, as a result of an annual independent study of the estimated remaining useful lives of our plant assets, with an insignificant impact to depreciation expense.