ANGDA looking to hire spur line field representatives

Three reps would travel two proposed spur line routes to look for resource; program is part of a larger Alaska Natural Gas Development Authority 2008 spending campaign

Eric Lidji

Petroleum News

You can get a lot done from an office in Anchorage, but every company needs eyes and ears on the ground, especially when the game is building pipelines.

To that end, the Alaska Natural Gas Development Authority wants to hire three representatives to look for opportunities, problems and resources along two potential routes for a spur connecting a large gas pipeline to Southcentral Alaska.

The field representatives will catalog everything from where to eat and sleep, where to get supplies, the locations of gravel pits and turn outs, and “an endless list of things” along the two routes, according to ANGDA CEO Harold Heinze.

ANGDA is budgeting $150,000 to be spread equally across the three contracts. The work would begin at the end of June. The representatives would start providing weekly status reports with field notes and photographs to ANGDA by July 11.

The representatives will travel along the proposed routes for two different spur line projects. While ANGDA prefers a route from Beluga to Delta Junction through Glennallen, following the Glenn and Richardson Highways, the Enstar Natural Gas Co. is studying a line from Southcentral to Fairbanks along the Parks Highway.

“We know which route we prefer,” Heinze said. “You always look at your alternatives.”

ANGDA plans to set up field offices in Palmer, Glennallen and Delta Junction.

Big spending year for ANGDA

Earlier in the year, the public corporation hired a firm to study the wetlands along a 370-mile corridor between Beluga and Delta Junction. The goal of the work is to guarantee a permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. With a budget between $1.2 million and $2 million, the project is the most expensive in the history of ANGDA.

The long arm of winter this year, which delivered several late season storms, delayed that project some, but the effort is now well under way, Heinze said.

“As far as I’m concerned we’re out there. We have boots on the ground. This is real,” Heinze said.

In early May, ANGDA also began looking for a gas supply coordinator and a propane supply coordinator, budgeted at $175,000 and $150,000 respectively.

The gas supply coordinator will start June 5 and will work to unify the gas needs of Southcentral Alaska. This fits into ANGDA’s broader strategy of serving as an “aggregator,” negotiating large supply contracts for a number of industrial customers.

The goal of these various projects is to complete “the front end” for a spur line, so that most of the remaining work is buying pipe and fitting it together, Heinze said.

The propane supply coordinator will begin in mid-June and over the following year will create a business plan for a wholesale propane facility on the North Slope.

The idea is to complete enough work to turn the project over to private industry and have the facility in operation by the end of 2009 to provide a lower cost fuel supply to communities in Alaska, especially rural parts of the state.

Heinze said the idea grew out of a recent propane demonstration project tested in the Interior village of Tanana, located along the Yukon River.

“It’s our belief that there really is a sense for the propane but there’s no point sitting back and waiting five or ten years for it,” Heinze said.

State lawmakers also gave ANGDA $4 million to study the shorter-term options for getting natural gas to residents in the state.