The Alaska Pipeline Project’s initial open season closed at 2 p.m. today Alaska time. 
While results are confidential, Tony Palmer, vice president of Alaska development for TransCanada, provided the following statement: 
“The Alaska Pipeline Project can report that we have received multiple bids from major industry players and others for significant volumes.
“We’re encouraged about the future advancement of the project if key conditions can be resolved. Although we need to further assess the results, we’re encouraged by the bids received, the interest expressed in our initial open season and shippers’ willingness to take the ongoing steps needed to continue to advance the project.”
“Our next step will be to work with our potential customers to resolve those conditions — that’s what we’ll be doing over the next several months,” Palmer said. 
The Alaska Pipeline Project, a joint venture of TransCanada and ExxonMobil, is the North Slope to market natural gas pipeline project licensed under the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act, which provided $500 million in reimbursement for project costs in exchange for meeting certain state “must haves” and a commitment to continue the project through Federal Energy Regulatory Commission certification even if the initial open season was unsuccessful. 
Given today’s statement by TransCanada that is not an issue, although as Palmer told Petroleum News yesterday in a background briefing, challenges remain, the next one being negotiating with bidders over conditions contained in the bids so that precedent agreements can be signed. 
Palmer said the goal is to have those agreements signed by year end. 
If conditions are simpler, it may take less time, he said. 
On the other hand, “If we get many complex conditions we may not be able to achieve it in 100 business days,” which would extend beyond the end of the year when precedent agreements could be signed, Palmer said. 
Once precedent agreements are signed, he said, FERC requires that within 10 days the pipeline “reveal the names of the customers, their volumes and the term of their agreement — the term being the date that it commences and the date that it terminates.”
Palmer said that there are still many hurdles in front of the project, starting with resolving conditions in the bids, and including regulatory approvals and financing.