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AGDC looking at GTL for Cook Inlet
The Alaska Gasline Development Corp. wants to know if a gas-to-liquids facility in Cook Inlet could provide a major anchor tenant for a bullet line bringing Alaska North Slope gas to Southcentral and has a request for proposals out for an economic feasibility study.
Cost studies completed for a standalone in-state gas pipeline and facilities and turned over to AGDC at a July 1 meeting indicated that without major industrial users for natural gas, low volumes on the line (250 million cubic feet per day) would result in delivered prices to consumers of more than twice the current rate for gas and transmission. That figure could potentially rise to three times the current rate, as the cost for North Slope gas, an unknown, would be in addition to capital costs.
A legislative initiative, House Bill 369, passed and signed into law by Gov. Sean Parnell in April, created an in-state gas pipeline team headed by the Alaska Housing Finance Corp. The legislation provided for AHFC to create a subsidiary corporation to plan, construct and finance in-state natural gas pipeline projects or to aid in planning, construction and financing of in-state natural gas pipeline projects.
AGDC created in May The Alaska Gasline Development Corp. was created by the AHFC board in mid-May and at a July 1 meeting of the new in-state gas pipeline team, pipeline and facility cost estimates prepared by the state’s standalone gas pipeline team were handed over to AGDC.
The contract is for 12 months; AGDC has the option to renew.
The economic analysis is due within three months of a notice to proceed on the contract.
Study elements are to include: identifying the most likely GTL technology and bands of GTL product prices; identifying Cook Inlet capacity for and cost of carbon mitigation for a GTL plant; identifying a general project execution schedule; quantifying the amount of power that could be produced from an adjacent GTL waste heat cogeneration plant; and addressing whether a GTL project in Cook Inlet “could serve as an ‘anchor tenant’ to increase pipeline demand, justify an increase in pipeline capacity, and support the economic viability of North Slope gas delivered to Cook Inlet.”
Information is available on the AGDC website at www.ahfc.state.ak.us/agdc/news.cfm; proposals are due Aug. 2.
—Kristen Nelson
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