Port authority denounces ads

Anne Sutton

Associated Press Writer

A group promoting an all-Alaska natural gas pipeline denounced recent ads calling its project a “pipe dream” and questioning its ability to bring gas to market. The Alaska Gasline Port Authority said the media campaign is nothing more than lies and dirty politics.

The port authority held a news conference in Fairbanks on June 27 to respond to television ads run by Alaska’s Future, a non-profit group formed to promote a competing gasline proposal negotiated between the Murkowski administration and the three major North Slope oil producers. The producers, BP, ConocoPhillips and Exxon own most of the 35 trillion cubic feet of discovered natural gas on the slope. Government agencies estimate another 200 tcf-plus has yet to be discovered.

The port authority, a coalition of municipal leaders from Fairbanks, the North Slope and Valdez, also said it will appeal a U.S. District Court’s dismissal of its antitrust lawsuit against Exxon and BP.

Jim Whitaker, mayor of the Fairbanks North Star Borough and head of the port authority, said the ads’ claims that his group does not have permits, access to gas supplies, ships to transport liquid natural gas or the ability to qualify for federal loan guarantees are simply untrue.

Whitaker provided documents including invoices showing the port authority’s efforts to obtain state and federal permits, language regarding state lease agreements and letters referencing a Memorandum of Understanding with shipping company Mitsui O.S.K. Lines. He also supplied photocopies of cover sheets for a federal pipeline right-of-way grant, a coastal zone consistency determination and other permits.

“What is being put forward by Alaska’s Future is a lie. It is being put forward in order to put in disrepute a very viable project, a competitor, and we will continue as the Alaska Gasline Port Authority to push our project because it is in Alaska’s best interest,” said Whitaker. He also said the port authority’s project could obtain access to North Slope gas if the State of Alaska enforced its leases with the North Slope producers.

Alaska’s Future president Shane Langland said he had not seen the group’s documentation and declined to comment on it. But he said the group is looking out for the state’s interests.

But the three producers did not pay for the ads, said Rhonda Boyles, an organizer for Alaska’s Future and a former mayor of the Fairbanks North Star Borough, according to a June 29 article in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner.

BP is only a member of the group and has no influence over its advertising decisions, said company spokesman Daren Beaudo told the News-Miner.

Alaska’s Future supports Murkowski’s proposal to build a gas line from the North Slope to Canada and markets in the Midwest. The administration negotiated the fiscal terms of a proposed agreement between the state and Exxon, BP and ConocoPhillips under the Stranded Gas Development Act. The Legislature has been reviewing proposed changes to the act.

The project would be the largest construction project ever in North America.

—Petroleum News contributed to this story