Davies said state looking at single permit for gas pipeline

Alan Bailey

The proposed gas pipeline from Alaska’s North Slope was one of the topics at an International Right of Way Association seminar in Anchorage May 17.

“It’s going to be a huge permitting project,” said Brian Davies, a member of the Alaska Highway Natural Gas Policy Council, and the state is trying to see if there is some way of looking at the permitting as a whole, rather just issuing one permit at a time. He also said the state has issues to resolve with its 12.5 percent royalty.

“There is a perception that … because of the state ownership, people along the pipeline are entitled to cheap gas,” Davies said. But, he said, that gas is an asset belonging to everyone in the state, not just those along a pipeline.

Gary Gustafson, land manager for the North American Natural Gas Pipeline Group, said the route east from Prudhoe Bay to Canada and then down the Mackenzie River in Canada, involves no municipal, private or Native land in Alaska, but would veer backwards and forwards between federal and state land offshore, in order to keep the pipeline at the correct depth below the sea surface.