|
AGIA applications going online Rutherford: State of Alaska won’t necessarily know who’s applying to build a gas pipeline from Prudhoe Bay south until applications are turned in this fall; RFA expected out in early July Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
Who is going to apply for state inducements to take North Slope natural gas to market under the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act? Not even the state will know until completed applications are received in October, Deputy Commissioner of Natural Resources Marty Rutherford said June 20.
She was updating the Alaska Natural Gas Development Authority on the status of the AGIA request for application the commissioners of Natural Resources and Revenue are preparing.
The goal is to get the RFA out by the first week of July, Rutherford said. If the RFA goes out on schedule, applications would be due the first week of October.
Distribution will be via a Web site, so no one will know who picks up applications.
“We’re establishing a Web site where people can download information and take a look at what the RFA requires,” she said. The RFA will be downloadable and anyone interested in seeing it can download it.
There will also be a Web site “where entities can ask questions about the request for applications and we’ll respond without knowing who the inquiry is from.”
She said the state and the public will know simultaneously who applied on the submission deadline in October, with a two-week turnaround expected from when applications come in the door until they are made public. In that interim the state will “determine whether or not they are complete and responsive.”
Applications which are complete and responsive will be made public, she said, and those that aren’t will be returned.
RFA goal is first week in July Rutherford said the goal is to get the RFA out by the first week in July. The RFA is complicated, she said, because it has “to reflect and expand” requirements under the AGIA legislation.
Rutherford said writing the RFA is challenging because the process envisions “multiple types of projects coming through the door,” ranging from in-state projects taking natural gas from the North Slope to Cook Inlet, to liquefied natural gas out of Valdez or Cook Inlet, to a project from the North Slope to Canada or to Chicago.
The RFA has to be written “to try to ensure that the information that is made available within the RFA allows for us to compare and contrast and make a judgment to what if any are in the state’s interest to pursue.”
Another challenge, she said, is the prices for a project which is some years out. “The prices of labor, prices of pipe, all of those things, are going to be estimates and the degree that they’re accurate or inaccurate has to be dealt with.”
Then the state has to be able to evaluate how “throughput and the timing of the proposed project will affect the net present value to the State of Alaska,” along with the ability of applicants to complete the project they propose.
In the RFA the state has to outline for potential applicants both how the information is being requested and how it is going to be evaluated.
Information intermediary process The state established a process to get answers to technical questions that may arise as the RFA is written.
It is using an information intermediary process with the law firm of Morrison and Foerster selected as the information intermediary.
Questions from RFA drafters will go to Morrison and Foerster and the firm will obtain the information by contacting the industry participants most likely to be able to provide it. In describing the process the state said that as appropriate the firm “will seek industry input from a broad, representative group of participants, although certain technical questions may be more properly directed to a smaller number of participants.”
Only Morrison and Foerster will know the identity of responders to the state’s questions; answers will be delivered to the state on an anonymous basis for possible use in drafting the RFA. Morrison and Foerster is to “use its best efforts to not reveal technical, financial, business, or other information in the responses which could identify the responder or compromise confidential or proprietary information.”
Proposal could be to Legislature by end of January In October, those applications that are complete and responsive will go out for a 60-day public review and comment. The evaluation period will continue until the administration is able to send a recommendation from the commissioners of Revenue and Natural Resources to the Legislature. Rutherford said the goal for that is towards the end of January, perhaps around Jan. 21. A notice of intention to issue an AGIA license would be issued, along with a written finding and substantiating information.
The Legislature then has 60 days to act.
“Assuming that they approve the license we would intend to get a license issued as quickly as possible. Our goal is to get the licensee in the field for the 2008 field season,” Rutherford said. The licensee then has three years to hold a binding open season.
All other timelines would be set in the AGIA application, except the $500 million state match, which is available only for seven years following the license award.
| 