6-25-12 – Does this B.C. gas discovery drive another nail into the coffin of Alaska – Lower 48 gas delivery?

 

PNA by Shane Lasley.  When Steve Borell (NGP Photo-R) announced that he was retiring as the executive director of the Alaska Miners Association — a post he held for 22 years — the group’s board of directors was charged with the daunting task of filling the void left by the association’s highly regarded and beloved leader. Unbeknownst to the board members, or Borell himself, the outgoing executive director had been grooming his replacement, Deantha Crockett (NGP Photo), for nearly a decade.  …  the board found Crockett, a lifelong Alaskan with a background and education that is custom-fit to the task of AMA executive director.

 

Petroleum News by Gary Park.  Apache has confirmed the presence of a monster shale natural gas play in the Liard basin of northern British Columbia.  …  It said a well drilled in 2009, but kept under wraps while it assembled more adjoining land, has yielded the “most prolific shale gas resource test in the world.”  Apache estimated it controls 48 trillion cubic feet of net marketable gas — equivalent to about eight years of Canada’s current annual gas output — and 210 tcf of resources within its 100 percent-owned 430,000 acres in the heart of the basin.  (Comment:  While we ask, "Does this B.C. gas discovery drive another nail into the coffin of Alaska – Lower 48 gas delivery," we suspect the answer is "yes" and then move on to to conclude that even the Asian LNG market will be more competitive.  This leads to a  further question: "Can Alaska North Slope gas be competitive in Asia when its economics must bear the burden of an 800 mile overland pipeline?"   One might conclude that tidewater Indonesian, Russian, Australian and Quatar LNG exports to Asia will easily outclass Alaska’s export economics.  The B.C. find, not 800 miles from tidewater, cannot be less economic when compared with Alaska’s remoteness, high labor costs, logistical challenges, climactic liabilities and poor investment climate.   These circumstances could all merge toward a conclusion that producers will take a second look and converting gas into GTL ("clean diesel"), batching it southward on the Trans Alaska Pipeline System, thus sustaining the life of Alaska’s economic lifeline.    -dh)