The Alaska Gasline Port Authority said this morning that Mitsubishi Corp., Japan’s largest general trading company, has joined its all-Alaska gas pipeline consortium.
The project would deliver Prudhoe Bay gas to Valdez where it would be liquefied “and shipped on tankers to the Asian market, the West Coast and Hawaii,” the port authority said.
The concept would take gas both to the Lower 48 and to Valdez, but the Valdez leg would be completed first.
“The Prudhoe to Valdez LNG leg of the Y-line can go long before the Canadian leg of the line,” said port authority Chairman Bert Cottle, mayor of the City of Valdez.
The port authority said Mitsubishi Corp. wrote to Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin recently, citing the constitution of the State of Alaska as requiring Alaska’s natural resources to be used for the maximum benefit of Alaska’s citizens. The port authority said Mitsubishi told the governor: “We believe that an LNG Project best meets this constitutional imperative” by providing for rapid development and local availability of gas.
Mitsubishi told the governor it has the ability to off-take LNG from Valdez for distribution on a flexible basis to buyers in the United States and abroad.
The port authority applied under the governor’s Alaska Gasline Inducement Act, but its application was not found complete.
See full story in June 29 issue of Petroleum News, available to subscribers online at noon Friday, June 27, at www.PetroleumNews.com
