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RCA grants confidentiality for filings
Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
In an Aug. 6 ruling the Regulatory Commission of Alaska has granted confidential treatment for compliance filings by BP Pipelines (Alaska) and Harvest Alaska requested by the commission in a July 16 order.
RCA has three dockets open for joint applications filed in September 2019 by BP Pipelines (Alaska) and Harvest Alaska for transfer to Harvest Alaska of BPPA’s indirect 32% interest in PTE Pipeline, an indirect 50% interest in the Milne Point Pipeline and certificate of public convenience and necessity No. 311, which authorizes BPPA to own and operate 48.441% of Trans Alaska Pipeline System assets and 47.5881% of Valdez Marine Terminal tankage assets.
This is the midstream portion of the sale of BP’s Alaska assets to Hilcorp, announced in August 2019. The upstream portion of the sale was approved by state agencies headed by the Alaska Department of Natural Resources in late July and closed at the end of July.
RCA has set a Sept. 28 date for its decision on the midstream portion of the sale.
Information at issue RCA has previously granted confidentiality to submittals by the companies in these dockets.
The information requested in the July 16 order, the subject of this order, included amendments to the purchase and sale agreement, corporate guarantees, organization of the applicants before and after the proposed transaction, joint liability of the Trans Alaska Pipeline System carriers for major expenditures for the line, conditional security agreement referenced by the applicants, previous versions of the financial assurance agreements between Harvest and the Alaska Department of Natural Resources and Harvest Alaska’s updated FAA with DNR.
RCA said applicants filed that information July 7, requesting confidential treatment of certain aspects of the response.
BP and Harvest provided two grounds for confidentiality in the most recent filings, potential competitive harm from disclosure and confidentiality based on materials requested by the commission which relate to finances or operations of pipelines subject to federal jurisdiction where the materials are not required to be filed with the federal agency.
In its Aug. 6 order RCA noted that in earlier orders it had determined that the purchase and sale agreement and the first amendment were confidential under the balancing test, with the competitive or financial disadvantage outweighing the public interest in disclosure, “based on the negotiated nature of the purchase and sale agreement and the first amendment in a competitive acquisition climate and the possibility that disclosure of the terms of one transaction could weaken the disclosing party’s bargaining position in other acquisition situations by providing insight into its negotiating strategy and economic valuation of properties,” and said it found “no reason to deviate from that line of reasoning in this decision.”
On the issue of the FAA, the RCA said these FAAs, as with an FAA submitted earlier in the proceeding, are confidential as a matter of law based on state statute which “precludes us from disclosing to the general public documents related to the finances or operations of a pipeline carrier subject to federal jurisdiction if the document is not required to be filed with the appropriate federal agency.”
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