Gas authority board selects chair, begins search for CEO

Kristen Nelson

Petroleum News editor-in-chief

The board of the Alaska Natural Gas Authority held its first meeting June 16 in Anchorage, selected Andy Warwick of Fairbanks as chairman and Scott Heyworth of Anchorage as vice chairman, voted to advertise for a chief executive officer for the authority and scheduled its next meeting for July 7. Some members of the group also said they planned to be in Valdez June 28 to hear a presentation by gas buyers from the Asian market.

The authority, established by ballot initiative 3 in November’s general election, is charged with designing, constructing, operating and maintaining a natural gas pipeline system from the North Slope to Prince William Sound. The board is also authorized to market and ship gas.

The board heard a presentation from Yukon Pacific (see story page 4) and a preliminary report from Harold Heinze on a work plan he prepared under a contract with the administration.

Steve Porter, deputy commission of the Alaska Department of Revenue, reviewed the board’s authority and funding, and suggested Warwick, a former commissioner of the Department of Administration, as temporary chair. The board later selected Warwick as chair. Heyworth, selected as vice chair, led the public campaign for passage of ballot measure 3.

In addition to Warwick and Heyworth, board members include: Warren Christian of Anchorage, David Cuddy of Anchorage, Bob Favretto of Kenai, John Kelsey of Valdez and Dan Sullivan of Anchorage.

Goal: development

The board discussed what it was looking for in a CEO, including stature, knowledge, the ability to assemble information and the ability to work with the administration.

The board was allocated only $150,000, and Warwick said the CEO needs to be someone who can come up with a proposal to go to the governor and Legislature for additional funding.

There was some board discussion about asking for information or presentations from the companies who own North Slope gas.

Kelsey is a member of the port authority board and he said the port authority has offered the North Slope producers 50 cents and 75 cents for gas. What it boils down to, Kelsey said, is that there is no requirement in state leases that the gas be developed, which means the leaseholders have no incentive to move forward with gas commercialization.

Heinze said that if the Alaska Stranded Gas Development Act negotiations are successful and the gas pipeline to the Lower 48 is built, the authority could do other things. If the negotiations fail, he said, the authority has the capability to bring the project to market.

Porter commented that a number of years ago when he was in the oil and gas industry there were three projects being discussed, two very robust and one an also-ran. Neither of the top two projects worked out, he said. The also-ran was Alpine.