Bill would OK $8M for ANGDA to work on bullet line to Southcentral Alaska

The Alaska Natural Gas Development Authority may get its funding and its authority significantly increased, if bills introduced in the Alaska House April 5 by Rep. Norm Rokeberg, R-Anchorage, become law.

The authority was established by ballot initiative to develop a plan for a pipeline from Alaska’s North Slope to Prince William Sound, where natural gas would be liquefied and shipped as LNG. The authority is also mandated to study a spur line from a North Slope gas pipeline to bring natural gas to Southcentral Alaska, and the spur line has been the authority’s focus.

In the course of evaluating projects, ANGDA Chief Executive Officer Harold Heinze has also talked about a “bullet line” — a project of last resort to get North Slope natural gas to Southcentral Alaska if neither the Alaska Highway nor the All-Alaska pipeline to Valdez is built.

The Rokeberg bills would direct the authority to look at a bullet line from the North Slope to Cook Inlet, and authorize $8 million for preliminary work.

The first, House Bill 253, would make the $8 million appropriation from the Railbelt energy fund “for preliminary engineering reconnaissance and related work for construction of a natural gas spur line to transport North Slope natural gas to the Southcentral natural gas transmission grid” and the second, HB 254, would direct the authority to use the money appropriated from the Railbelt energy fund and from other sources for preliminary engineering and related work for the construction of a pipeline to transport ANS natural gas to the Southcentral gas distribution grid, as well as amending the definition of “project” as applied to the work of ANGDA to include a line directly from the North Slope to the Southcentral gas distribution grid or to tidewater at a point on Cook Inlet.