|
Gas consortium awards 10 pipeline feasibility study contracts The group hopes to have all studies done by November, so a decision can be made then on whether and how to proceed with a gas project Petroleum News Alaska
In two recent announcements the North American Natural Gas Pipeline Group has awarded 10 contracts for Arctic gas pipeline-related feasibility studies to several U.S. and Canadian firms. The gas group is a consortium of the three major North Slope gas owners – BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc., Phillips Alaska Inc. and ExxonMobil.
Gas consortium spokesman Curtis Thayer said that all the contracts were geared toward developing an economic project.
Four land, two environmental contracts Four land services contracts, which deal with land ownership issues, were awarded in late March to American Reclamation Group LLC, Anchorage; Scott Land & Lease, Calgary; Progress Land Services, Edmonton; and Wilbanks Resources Corp., Denver.
The scope of their work includes field surveys that will begin this summer.
The U.S. environmental services contract was awarded to the Anchorage office of URS Corp.; the Canadian environmental contract was given to AMEC Earth and Environmental Corp. of Calgary.
Thayer told PNA that these two contracts serve as a foundation for permitting and filing of applications with U.S. and Canadian regulatory agencies.
The URS team will have 100 employees involved in the contract. AMEC expects to have 80 team members involved in its contract. Engineering goes to three joint ventures The last four contracts were awarded in early April to three joint ventures, representing nine different contractors. The contracts were for engineering services for potential pipeline routes from Prudhoe Bay to Alberta; a new pipeline from Alberta to U.S. markets; a gas treatment plant on the North Slope; and a natural gas liquids plant.
Anchorage-based VECO through a joint effort with Fluor in Sugar Land, Texas, and Calgary, Alberta, will provide engineering, conceptual design and evaluation for route possibilities from the North Slope to central Alberta. This work will provide a basis for possible future Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and Canadian National Energy Board permit applications.
The AlasCan Group, based in Calgary, will be responsible for providing engineering, conceptual design and evaluation of new-build pipeline infrastructure from Alberta to U.S. markets. The group is a joint venture between five companies: Kellogg Brown & Root, based in Houston and Edmonton; COLT Engineering, based in Calgary; Michael Baker Jr.’s Anchorage office, Natchiq and NANA/ Colt Engineering LLC, both headquartered in Anchorage.
Natchiq, headquartered in Anchorage, through a joint venture with Parsons Engineering in Arcadia, Calif., will be responsible for engineering and evaluation of a gas treatment plant on the North Slope. The plant would condition gas for sale by removing CO2 and compressing and chilling gas before it entered the pipeline. It would be the largest facility of its kind in the world.
Fluor and VECO will also be engineering and evaluating a natural gas liquids plant that may be built along the pipeline route at a location to be determined during the feasibility phase. This plant would remove NGLs, which can be used in a variety of petroleum applications.
The gas consortium hopes to have all the studies done by November, Thayer said, so a decision can be made then on whether and how to proceed with a gasline project.
| 