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Port Authority tries to revive its bid
Wesley Loy Anchorage Daily News
One of the rejected natural gas pipeline applicants is asking Gov. Sarah Palin’s administration to reverse the decision.
The Alaska Gasline Port Authority, in a 10-page letter to Palin commissioners dated Jan. 10, explained that its Nov. 30 application was incomplete because of trouble getting project cost and other data from two industry partners that pulled out of the bid.
The Port Authority — a coalition of the Fairbanks North Star Borough, the city of Valdez and the North Slope Borough — proposed an 806-mile pipeline from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez, where the gas would be liquefied for transport on tankers.
Most of the other four applicants bidding for a state license and financial incentives proposed pipelines through Canada.
Jan. 4 the Palin administration declared only Canadian pipeline giant TransCanada Corp.’s application was complete under terms of AGIA, the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act.
Bid supplemented Dec. 18 In the letter to Palin, however, Port Authority chairman Jim Whitaker said his organization supplemented its bid on Dec. 18, and the state should put the application out for public comment along with TransCanada’s.
“The people of Alaska will suffer a grave injustice if the all-Alaska project is not included as an option in the AGIA process,” Whitaker wrote. He asserted his organization’s pipeline project would generate more benefit for Alaska than a pipeline through Canada.
In rejecting the Port Authority’s bid, Palin’s gas team said the supplement was an attempt to “materially change the substance” of the original bid after the Nov. 30 deadline and it wouldn’t be considered.
Bill Walker, the Port Authority’s general counsel, said Jan.11 the organization isn’t looking for special treatment over the other AGIA bidders. The two would-be partners — a major pipeline company and a liquefied natural gas company Walker wouldn’t identify — created delays beyond the Port Authority’s control, he said.
“We’re not trying to be the spoiler in the process in any way,” Walker said.
Palin spokeswoman Sharon Leighow said Jan. 11 state lawyers would review the Port Authority’s request.
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