Murkowski calls for end to ‘decline mentality’

By Petroleum News • Alaska

Sen. Frank Murkowski says Alaskans have two choices: “Tax ourselves and spend down the permanent fund or make government more efficient and build our resource based economy.”

The choice is clear, he said, suggesting it would take only nine more Alpine-sized fields to bring North Slope production up from the 1.1 million barrels it’s producing today to the 2 million barrels a day it produced during Alaska’s boom years in the late 1970s, early 1980s.

“Some seem to accept that we’re on the verge of presiding over the decline of our oil industry; I say not so fast,” the senator said in remarks to the Alaska Support Industry Alliance’s annual conference, Meet Alaska, Jan. 25 in Anchorage.

Alaska has the resources, the people, the technology and the markets and it can produce more oil and jobs, Murkowski said.

“We need state regulatory and fiscal certainty with responsible environmental oversight. We need to be competitive with other oil regions in the world to attract investment dollars,” he said, suggesting the possibility of a “frontier relief provision” similar to the “Gulf of Mexico deepwater federal relief” as a means of spurring exploration in areas of the state further from infrastructure.

Permits must be “generated in a reasonable time frame.” The state’s role has to be “more consistent and more responsive in supporting resource development,” he said.

Oil development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is precisely the sort of stimulus the nation needs to get back on its feet, the senator said. Bonus bids alone would bring $1.6 billion to the state.

There were “seven anti-ANWR ads run in a one-hour special this week with Tom Brokaw and the president,” he said. When the 1002 area is opened for drilling the senator believes the environmental groups will find another “cash cow.”

When discussion of the energy bill begins on the Senate floor on Feb. 11, Murkowski said he plans to introduce a prohibition on an “over-the-top” North Slope gas pipeline route. He will also introduce a provision to make certain all North Slope gas producers have access to the line.