RCA taking comments on FNG request

The state is taking comments on a request from Fairbanks Natural Gas LLC to be freed of its obligation to update regulators about efforts to secure a new natural gas supply.

After a Cook Inlet supply dispute threatened Fairbanks customers in the middle of the Interior winter, the Regulatory Commission of Alaska required Fairbanks Natural Gas to file bi-monthly updates on its efforts to secure an alternative supply on the North Slope.

The company has been making those updates every other month since May 2007.

With the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority now leading a public-private effort to build a North Slope liquefied natural gas plant and an associated trucking operation to increase the availability of natural gas to residents and businesses across the Fairbanks North Star Borough, Fairbanks Natural Gas is abandoning its plan to pursue a similar project. As such, it now also wants to be relieved of the reporting requirement.

The state is taking comments on the request through June 11.

- Eric Lidji