Today is the due date for applications under Gov. Sarah Palin’s Alaska Gasline Inducement Act, which offers incentives for gas pipeline proposals that meet the state’s requirements. The State of Alaska’s goal is to get a pipeline built that will take North Slope natural gas to markets both inside and outside the state.
ConocoPhillips said today it submitted a proposal to develop a pipeline that would transport about 4 billion cubic feet per day of North Slope natural gas to the United States and Canada.
The Alaska Natural Gas Development Authority has already posted its applications for spur lines to Southcentral on its Web site: www.angda.state.ak.us. These applications are meant to meet AGIA’s in-state gas use requirements and to be attached to mainline pipe applications.
ConocoPhillips said it is “prepared to make significant investments, without state matching funds, to advance this project,” but that its plans are contingent on Alaska establishing a long-term fiscal regime under which gas producers can operate.
In a letter to Palin, ConocoPhillips CEO James Mulva said he was willing to partner in a pipeline company as one of the owners, and that it makes sense for BP and ExxonMobil to also consider participating.
“We desire to work directly and purposefully with the state of Alaska and the Legislature to advance this project as quickly as possible. We also expect to approach other parties to explore ways through which their participation could add value to this effort,” Mulva said in a statement this morning.
ConocoPhillips said Bechtel Corp. will provide engineering and technical support for the early stage of the project.
Other companies that have inquired about the bidding process under AGIA include the BG Group, Shell and MidAmerican Energy Holdings. In August, MidAmerican CEO David Sokol told Petroleum News that his company and partners intended to submit an application.
Pipeline applications won’t be made public immediately, although Sharon Leighow in the governor’s press office said the state will release a list of those who apply. Before applications are made public the state will review them to ensure that they are complete.
The state’s “completeness review period” is planned to run from Nov. 30 to Dec. 21, although the length of that review “is dependent upon the number, quality and complexity of applications received,” the state said on the AGIA Web site, and could take longer than three weeks.
The administration’s goal is to select an applicant and get a proposal to the Legislature for approval early next year so that the selected project can begin field work in the summer of 2008.
Editor's note: To learn more about ConocoPhillips bid and read the letter Jim Bowles sent to the governor. Go to http://www.ansnaturalgaspipeline.com/
