ExxonMobil sells its share of trans-Alaska pipeline to Williams

by The Associated Press

Exxon Mobil Corp. said March 28 that its subsidiary, Mobil Alaska Pipeline Co., has signed an agreement to sell its 3.0845 percent interest in the trans-Alaska pipeline system to a unit of The Williams Companies Inc.

Williams operates a refinery at North Pole near Fairbanks which it acquired in its March 1998 merger with Mapco Inc. The refinery processes North Slope crude oil taken from the pipeline, producing jet fuel, gasoline, heating oil, naphtha and asphalt.

Williams Alaska’s oil refinery in North Pole receives its crude feedstock from the pipeline, which runs from Prudhoe Bay to a tanker terminal in Valdez. The refinery processes more than 200,000 barrels per day into gasoline, aviation fuel and other products.

The company also has a distribution terminal at the Port of Anchorage, 28 retail outlets and an interest in an air-cargo transfer facility at Anchorage International Airport.

Williams acquired the Alaska properties in March 1998 when it bought Mapco Inc. for $3 billion.

Terms of the sales — which include Mobil’s share of the trans-Alaska pipeline and the Valdez terminal — were not disclosed, but ExxonMobil said the agreement satisfies conditions required by the Federal Trade Commission and the four western states which signed a parallel consent order for approving the ExxonMobil merger.

Closing of this sale is subject to the preferential rights of the other owners of the pipeline system, ExxonMobil said, as well as approval of the FTC and the state attorneys general of Alaska, California, Oregon and Washington.

ExxonMobil Pipeline Co. will retain its 20 percent interest in the trans-Alaska pipeline system.