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Kenai Peninsula Borough wants North Slope gas New mayor puts economic development on forefront, touts area’s plentiful land, outdoor lifestyle, trained workforce Steve Sutherlin PNA Contributing Writer
The delivery of North Slope natural gas to the Kenai Peninsula is vital to the region’s future, and a key to further benefit if BP Amoco’s gas-to-liquids tests in the area are successful, says Kenai Peninsula Borough Mayor Dale Bagley.
In remarks to the World Trade Center Alaska in Anchorage Aug. 2, Bagley said the $86 million BP Amoco experimental gas-to-liquids plant is just the beginning of new petroleum-related development in the area.
Construction of the plant will begin this winter in Nikiski on the Kenai Peninsula near the Tesoro refinery.
The plant will turn gas into synthetic crude oil and generate about 35 permanent jobs, Bagley said, adding that a permanent full-scale gas-to-liquids plant could mean several hundred jobs.
The Kenai Peninsula has the land, location and workforce needed should the concept prove feasible, Bagley said.
The borough is active in the task force that is boosting plans to bring North Slope natural gas to Cook Inlet. The gas is needed for existing industry and new industry in the area, Bagley said.
“We have seven years of proven reserves in Cook Inlet, and while (the Cook Inlet gas) will probably last longer than that, it’s a finite supply,” Bagley said. Economic development welcome “South Central Alaska has 70 percent of the state’s population and even if we didn’t need gas to heat our homes, a large part of the electricity we use is generated with gas,” Bagley said.
Construction, tourism and oil business activity were all up on the Kenai Peninsula this year but commercial fishing income was down, Bagley said.
The borough will do more to promote new industry in the area, he said. Bagley said he has been disappointed with the performance of the Borough’s 11-year-old economic development district and plans to make changes to accelerate development. Office to move The borough needs to respond more quickly to potential developers, he said: “You have to convince a 15-member board at EDD, or sign a one-year development contract,” he said.
“The EDD office is in a bad location, out in Nikiski,” Bagley said.
Bagley said he plans to move the EDD offices to commercial lease space in Soldotna, the commercial heart of the borough and seat of the borough government.
The EDD will have a $90,000 budget and will have a business development officer, an economist and a grant writer/administrator on board, the mayor said.
Bagley also panned the performance of the area’s federally funded $1 million business incubator.
“Unfortunately, nothing’s hatched at this incubator,” he said.
The EDD has hired a new executive director, Betsy Arbelovsky.
Arbelovsky emphasized that a trained workforce was already available locally, and that many oil workers, including upper management, were graduates of the Kenai Peninsula School District.
The Alaska Vocational and Technical Education Center in Seward has trained thousands of workers for petroleum and other industries, she said. A planned foreign trade zone may provide opportunities to build oil equipment for shipment throughout the Pacific Rim, Arbelovsky said.
Successes A co-generation project to tap waste heat for electricity at the Unocal fertilizer plant at Nikiski is progressing smoothly, Bagley said. A new Forcenergy drilling platform in Cook Inlet being installed this summer is a major stimulant for the area’s oil service industry, he said, adding that the new Aurora gas project is slated to begin this fall.
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