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Foothills executive: Producers asked for larger gasline quote
Kay Cashman PNA Publisher
John Ellwood, Foothills Pipe Lines Ltd. executive vice president and CEO, said the North Slope producers asked the pipeline companies for a natural gas pipeline proposal that would move 4.5 billion cubic feet per day and could be economically expanded up to 5.4 bcf a day. The increase in volume required a design for 48 inch versus 42 inch pipe, he said.
This is “a somewhat larger project in terms of bulk volume and pipe diameter than I described to you at various hearings last year,” Ellwood told members of the Joint Committee on Gas Pipelines Jan. 16 via teleconference from Calgary, headquarters for Foothills.
The North Slope producers met the second week in January in Anchorage with the pipeline companies to discuss what Ellwood and other members of his consortium refer to as a “proposal” for a 48 inch pipeline and what Dave MacDowell, external affairs manager for the Alaska Gas Producers Pipeline Team, said was more of “a framework for discussion.” (See page 1 story in the Jan. 20 issue of PNA.)
Both sides say the meeting was the first of several. Elwood described it as “very constructive” and said he expects the next meeting to take place in two to three weeks.
When asked about what legislation might be needed to help move the Alaska Highway gas pipeline project forward, Ellwood told the committee “it’s a bit too early for the group to come to any conclusions about what legislation might be needed to help forward this project. We are in the initial discussions with North Slope producers and until those discussions progress a little farther, it’s difficult for us to determine what might be most useful in the way of legislation either on the federal or the state front.”
He said the producers and pipeline companies need “a little more time to continue our discussions,” promising to report to the committee periodically on their progress.
“Our expectation is that these discussions will be ongoing as we progress towards some resolution of how we might work together here.”
Ellwood asked that the committee refer to his group by the abbreviated version of its project name — ANGTS, which stands for Alaska Natural Gas Transportation System.
ANGTS is a consortium of 10 major U.S. and Canadian pipeline companies that signed a memorandum of understanding in mid-November to proceed with the development of an Alaska Highway gasline from the North Slope to connect to existing pipelines in Alberta which deliver gas to the Lower 48. Member companies include seven U.S. energy companies that are subsidiaries of The Williams Companies, Duke Energy, Sempra Energy International, Enron, PG&E Corp., NiSource (purchased Columbia Energy in 2000) and El Paso Corp. and three Canadian companies – Foothills and its joint owners, TransCanada PipeLines and Westcoast Energy (Duke Energy is in the process of acquiring Westcoast).
The North Slope producers are BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc., Exxon Mobil Corp. and Phillips Alaska Inc.
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