AEDC: presenting an Alaska call to action

On March 31 the Anchorage Economic Development Corp. will present its annual 10-year projection of potential resource extraction projects in Alaska. And, with various projects uncertain or on hold thanks to a variety of factors including taxation, environmental permitting, high development costs and commodity pricing, that future projection is not looking encouraging, Bill Popp, CEO of AEDC, told Petroleum News March 22.

“This year our projection is not one of optimism,” he said.

Popp said that, although there are quite a few projects that could potentially move ahead, AEDC sees little or no possibility of any of these projects happening unless people in Alaska work together to tackle the issues that are impeding resource development.

“We are presenting what we believe is a call to action,” Popp said. “From our point of view, we’re at a crossroads.”

As in years past, Petroleum News and its sister publication North of 60 Mining have been helping AECD by researching a list of potential projects, together with the project objectives, costs and employment potential. The McDowell Group has been using the project data to model future levels of investment, employment and resource production, if the projects go ahead.

But this year, given the current level of pessimism about Alaska resource development, AEDC will simply present the project data as a series of opportunities, rather than attempt to assess the probability of each project actually happening, Popp said.

Bearing in mind that one opportunity that people have been considering is the establishment of a chemical industry in the Cook Inlet region, to process natural gas from the North Slope, AEDC has invited Dave Witte, executive vice president for business development for Chemical Markets Associates Inc., to the March 31 meeting to talk about the global chemical industry, and about Alaska’s potential place in that industry.

—Alan Bailey