NEWS BULLETIN

June 21, 2013 --- Vol. 19, No. 41June 2013

Governor says it’s not enough

Gov. Sean Parnell responded this morning to the statement by BP, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil and TransCanada on progress they have made on a liquefied natural gas project from the North Slope to Southcentral Alaska.

Referring to his January State of the State address, Parnell said, “The companies have clearly met the first two benchmarks.” In mid-February the companies defined the project; earlier today they said summer field work had begun.

The third benchmark was agreement on the pre-front-end engineering and design, pre-FEED, stage of the project.

Parnell said in his statement that the third benchmark, “a pre-FEED commercial agreement, has not been achieved.”

The governor said he was concerned that spending commitments, $80 million to $100 million, do not go beyond the end of the year.

“The announcement simply does not reflect that the companies have budgeted or allocated hundreds of millions of dollars related to pre-FEED, which is what they have previously indicated is required for this phase of the project. In short, the companies are making progress, but not moving as quickly as Alaskans expect,” Parnell said.

BP Alaska spokeswoman Dawn Patience provided an email response to the governor’s comments:

“The Alaska South Central LNG project is important to Alaska and important to BP. The State of Alaska plays a huge role in making this project commercially viable and enabling progress. BP and the other companies continue to make progress in moving this project forward as demonstrated by our commitment of 350 people and our anticipated investment of $100 million in the project by year-end. Our commitment is to continue to work together with the state, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, and TransCanada with the goal of moving the project forward.”

ConocoPhillips Alaska spokeswoman Natalie Lowman provided an email statement from that company in response to the governor.

“We are on course to have spent $80 to $100 million by year end 2013. That is on top of the historical $700 million the four companies have spent in efforts to commercialize ANS gas. We continue working to move the project forward and are undertaking activities like summer field work that normally would be considered part of pre-FEED.”

—Kristen Nelson

See story in June 30 issue, available online Friday, June 28 at 11 a.m. at www.PetroleumNews.com


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