Senate Investigates Gas Projects - Oil Tax Issue Is the Elephant In The Room - Point Thomson Agreement Supports Gasline

Oh Canada - significant developments in Canadian energy

 

TransCanada has no firm commitments to ship gas on its proposed $40 billion gas pipeline project according to executive, Tony Palmer (NGP Photo).   See Reuters Story breaking now.  (Story by Yereth Rosen, Jeffrey Jones and Rob Wilson)  Watch the hearings:  http://www.alaskalegislature.tv/ 

 

TODAY, the Senate Resource Committee Examines Status of TransCanada's AGIA Gasline Project (See above report) and Of Cook Inlet Natural Gas Reserves, Exploration and Development Projects.  Go Here For Information.  Below Is Yesterday's Report On the Alaska Intrastate Gas Pipeline Project--And Our Own Editorial Comments.  (Mike Prax comments in the News Miner: We would be foolish to even consider abandoning two years of effort and risk losing hundreds of millions of dollars on a project that is proceeding according to the agreed-upon plan, only to start over on the same project that we had to admit was uneconomical.)

Alaska Dispatch by Patti Epler.  The state and Exxon Mobil have reached an agreement in the years-old lawsuit over the Point Thomson oil and gas field on the North Slope, a major hurdle that needed to be crossed before a major gas pipeline could be economically viable.

ADN by Richard Mauer.    ...  Dan Fauske (NGP Photo-R), the head of the state-owned corporation, tried with his staff to answer the questions ....  "I appreciate the enthusiasm and the need to answer the questions, but you're not going to answer every question in one year," he said.  ...  In a business flush with four-letter acronyms, the state corporation headed by Fauske was chartered by the Legislature to examine the Alaska Stand-Alone Gas Pipeline, or ASAP, once called the bullet line.  ... Lest anyone think that the 24-inch line is a small-scale project, Fauske's lieutenant, project manager Dave Haugen (NGP Photo), sought to correct the record.  "This project is spoken flippantly, occasionally, as being the 'little-inch guys,' or a minor project," Haugen told the committee. "This is a huge project...."

ADN by Sean Cockerham.  Gov. Sean Parnell (NGP Photo-l) is getting ready to renew his push to roll back Alaska's oil tax while supporters of the tax are pointing to news of increased exploration and jobs on the North Slope.   The latest report getting attention from lawmakers came from Petroleum News. It reported in an Aug. 14 article that "operators on the North Slope and nearshore Beaufort Sea are preparing for what promises to be one of the busiest exploration seasons since 1969... Fairbanks Democratic Sen. Joe Paskvan (NGP Photo) sent a statement to the press soon after the Petroleum News article first appeared. Paskvan is among the skeptics in the state Senate who blocked Parnell's tax cut.  "It appears that Alaska's tax credits under its production tax system are working to promote capital expenditures, including new exploration wells. Good news for the industry and the state, which relies upon the industry for revenues to its treasury. Exploration should mean increased oil production and increased throughput down the pipeline," he said.   *    News Miner by Rod Boyce.  Parnell, in an email from his spokeswoman, responded Saturday to Paskvan’s comments and to the Petroleum News story.  ...  Sen. Joe Paskvan, D-Fairbanks, put out a news release last week praising a recent story in Petroleum News that said 2012 could be one of the busiest in years for drilling activity on the North Slope.