Parnell budgets Umiat road permitting 12/13/2009
Proposes $8 million line item in FY 2011 budget for permitting an all-season road; claims lack of infrastructure holding up development
Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell is planning to include $8 million in his fiscal year 2011 budget for the Department of Transportation and Public Facilities to permit a road to Umiat. A road to Umiat, a stag...

Risk analysis gets low marks from NAS 10/25/2009
National peer review recommends Alaska take a top-down look at oil and gas failures costliest to state, get industry cooperation
An oil and gas infrastructure risk assessment methodology developed by a contractor for the State of Alaska has received failing marks in a review by the National Academy of Sciences. After Prudhoe B...

Changing of the guard 07/12/2009
Parnell's experience debated as Alaska's lieutenant governor becomes governor
Alaska lawmakers and industry observers are hopeful that Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell's diverse experience, including a stint as an oil company lobbyist, will give him the perspective needed to make progress...

Jeffress, Rogers join ANGDA board 06/07/2009
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has made two new appointments and one reappointment to the board of the Alaska Natural Gas Development Authority. Newly named are William R. Jeffress and Brian D. Rogers; the...

State and feds sue BP over oil spills 04/05/2009
The pair of civil complaints could lead to hundreds of millions in fines and compensation related to two oil spills in 2006
The state and federal governments are seeking multimillion-dollar fines from BP Exploration (Alaska) related to a pair of North Slope oil spills at the Prudhoe Bay field in 2006. The civil complaints...

Road to Umiat work begins with fieldwork on accelerated schedule 04/05/2009
The state is moving forward on a road to Umiat. The Department of Transportation and Public Facilities is preparing to spend more than $1 million on environmental studies and fieldwork to be completed...

Alaska PFD payments expected to shrink 03/22/2009
Proposal in Senate would stabilize permanent fund dividends, now expected to shrink to under $100 in 2013, fund managers say
Alaska Permanent Fund dividends could dwindle over the next four years to as little as $68 in 2013, according to projections by fund managers. Mike Burns, executive director of the $27 billion oil-wea...

FERC, Murkowski on Alaska gas project 03/01/2009
Alaska's senior senator draws reaction to assertions that single line, fiscal certainty needed now; FERC wants TC Alaska pre-file
Alaska's senior U.S. senator, Republican Lisa Murkowski, addressed the Alaska Legislature Feb. 19, the day before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission submitted its seventh semiannual report to Co...

DNR concludes Point Thomson hearing 02/22/2009
ExxonMobil moving ahead with ice roads; Nabors says rig will be ready to move out by mid-March; five to seven days to location
The Department of Natural Resources finished up its hearing on appeals of the termination of 31 Point Thomson oil and gas leases Feb. 12 and Point Thomson operator ExxonMobil said the company began ic...

Norman reappointed to commission 02/15/2009
John Norman has been reappointed to the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission by Gov. Sarah Palin. The six-year term expires in 2015. Norman was appointed to the public seat on the three-member...

Groups sue over Alaska NPDES delegation 12/14/2008
Native villages on Bristol Bay and on the lower Kuskokwim River have joined with conservation organizations to appeal the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's October decision to allow the State of...

State takes on water quality permitting 11/09/2008
Alaska becomes 45th state to regulate pollution discharge sources under NPDES; oil and gas permits in final phase, three years out
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has approved the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation's application to run National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permitting in the state....

Sarah Palin remains Alaska superstar 10/19/2008
Drop in popularity after joining McCain campaign attributed to partisan politics, but she's still state's most popular public figure
Gov. Sarah Palin was aided in her efforts to change the state's relationship with the oil and gas industry by an unprecedented popularity among the Alaska public. Palin won her campaign for governor...

Experience, constitution would guide Parnell in leadership role 09/07/2008
Gov. Sarah Palin will continue to handle state affairs during her campaign for vice president, state officials said Aug. 29, the day Republican presidential nominee John McCain named Palin as his runn...

ANGDA renews open season statute debate 06/29/2008
Provisions from 2000 law could complicate a future open season for in state use of natural gas, debates go back to summer 2004
Dusting off a debate left unresolved with the demise of natural gas pipeline negotiations in the Murkowski administration, the Alaska Natural Gas Development Authority is once again asking state lawma...

Rebuffed AGIA rival backs governor 06/15/2008
Port authority board member Whitaker says he now supports TransCanada's proposal; expert says LNG project not competitive
Jim Whitaker, mayor of the Fairbanks North Star Borough and a board member of the Alaska Gasline Port Authority, is supporting Gov. Sarah Palin's approach to building a natural gas pipeline and her de...

Numbers show Palin spends less on travel 04/13/2008
Travel expenses have plummeted under Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. A look at the numbers shows that former Gov. Frank Murkowski spent more than half a million dollars on travel in his last year in office....

Point Thomson settlement offered 03/30/2008
Eastern North Slope unit's working interest owners offer milestones for work in 23rd plan of development; agree to termination if not met, but with conditions
The major Point Thomson unit owners - ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron and ConocoPhillips - have proposed a settlement in their dispute with the State of Alaska over the development of the unit. The basis of...

TransCanada lobbies Congress for transport fees 03/23/2008
In briefing prepared for members of Congress, company proposes that U.S. pays if pipeline fails to attract enough paying customers
A Canadian energy company seeking a state natural gas pipeline license has been actively lobbying in Washington, D.C., to have the federal government cover the cost of the project should the company f...

Murkowski chief of staff pleads guilty to fraud 03/09/2008
According to his plea bargain, Clark will assist feds in Alaska corruption probe, giving fuel to rumors of more indictments to come
Jim Clark - the man who represented former Alaska Gov. Frank Murkowski at the gas line negotiating table with ExxonMobil, BP and ConocoPhillips - has pleaded guilty to federal fraud charges. Clark, ch...

No off ramps 03/09/2008
Exxon insists it will take Point Thomson to small-scale production by 2014
Does the 23rd and latest plan of development for the ExxonMobil-operated Point Thomson unit at the eastern end of Alaska's North Slope just present a series of good intentions, or does it commit the o...

Murkowski wants back in gas debate 02/03/2008
Alaska's former governor has met with ConocoPhillips, says he intends to meet with BP, ExxonMobil, TransCanada on gas pipeline
Gormer Gov. Frank Murkowski wants to be a player again in the high-stakes game of building a pipeline to tap the North Slope's natural gas. Murkowski has re-emerged after a year out of office and the...

Multiple gas line plans set to be heard 01/20/2008
House likely to hear multiple proposals, including port authority; Senate Resources also wants to hear from those who didn't apply
The Alaska Legislature began work in Juneau Jan. 15 with a lot of familiar issues on the table - ethics, oil taxes and a gas line. The focus on ethics will probably be on fine tuning the 2007 ethics...

TransCanada OK'd 01/13/2008
Only one of five AGIA applicants moves to next step for public comment
The State of Alaska accepted five applications Nov. 30 under the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act, or AGIA, for state incentives to build a gas pipeline to take North Slope gas to market. When the state...

ConocoPhillips goes its own way 12/09/2007
Company rejects AGIA, submits own proposal to state for North Slope natural gas project; says it requires no matching funds
ConocoPhillips did not submit an application under Gov. Sarah Palin's Alaska Gasline Inducement Act but the company has put a non-AGIA proposal before the state. None of the major gas holders on the N...