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BP today announced its intention to establish a separate business to manage its onshore oil and gas assets in the US Lower 48.
See today's Globe & Mail piece on Asian LNG competition for price
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Comment: Yesterday we noted that two legislators are planning for a new oil revenue stream should voters adopt an August Primary Ballot proposition to repeal oil tax reform. That revenue stream will be based on a new policy emphasis on state investment and equity into oil and gas exploration and development projects. These are the same minority legislators who are leading an effort to repeal the SB21 oil tax reform bill passed by a majority of the House and Senate, and signed by the Governor, less than a year ago. We can now see a strategy rising from the mist: repeal of tax reform will have to be replaced by something that produces revenue. Since repeal of reform will deflect investment, an unhappy but obvious policy replacement would be to socialize/nationalize natural resource industries…starting with the small step of massive equity investment of public funds and employment of state employees to oversee the profitability of the investments. What could possibly go wrong? Today, we hear in a Fairbanks News Miner editorial, that certain Mayors who reap large and mostly passive benefits from the oil and gas statewide property tax, are mounting an effort to investigate impact on their revenues from an agreement between the state and gas pipeline parties regarding the fiscal regime enabling a gas pipeline project to proceed. Certain gubernatorial candidates oppose both oil tax reform and the fiscal terms surrounding a gas pipeline project. The current governor supports both tax reform and the proposed gas pipeline fiscal regime. While there seems to be alignment among major gas pipeline and oil tax stakeholders, lack of political alignment from other, vocal influence leaders could well cause oil tax reform to disappear after August, soon to be replaced by new statewide leadership and a new world of natural resource control by bureaucrats and government ownership of the 'means of production'. Should this be the outcome, we can envision great impact, as well, on Alaska's entire investment climate, not merely limited to natural resource investors. -dh |
Comment: Fox News interviewed former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin (NGP Photo) today.
During the interview, we learned that Candidate Obama opposed Candidate Romney's conviction that Russia posed a global threat to peace.
The program also produced a video of Candidate Sarah Palin, earlier warning that just as Russia invaded Georgia it could as easily invade Ukraine.
Throughout the interview, Palin emphasized the importance of approving the Keystone XL pipeline and developing domestic energy resources with Administration support–rather than Administration opposition.
Our faithful readers know that we have been hard on Palin for her Alaska oil tax and gas pipeline policies nearly a decade ago…but in this interview we found ourselves appreciating her message, which we paraphrase: "Develop America's resources aggressively and responsibly now, Mr. Obama, or watch our standing in the world and support for our allies diminish along with our national security and economic recovery."
We also note from the current issue of Petroleum News, that "Commissioner John Norman (NGP Photo) retired from the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission at the end of January. Norman, an attorney, had been the public member of the commission for 10 years. He was named to the commission by former Gov. Frank Murkowski in 2004, replacing Sarah Palin as the public mem…." (We are reminded once again of what a small world it is as we congratulate Governor Palin on her stand for domestic energy production and her replacement, Commissioner Norman, for a lifetime of service to the state and nation. -dh
Wall Street Journal by James Freeman
WARREN BUFFETT, CLIMATE-CHANGE DENIER
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The billionaire chairman of Berkshire Hathaway (Photo, Buffett with NGP Publisher) is on some kind of roll. Yesterday we told you about his warning on public pension funds in his annual letter to shareholders. Now, he's puncturing deeply-held liberal myths about global warming. Mr. Buffett tells CNBC that extreme weather events are not becoming more common, and that climate change is not altering his company's calculations when insuring against catastrophic weather events. "The public has the impression that because there's been so much talk about climate that events of the last 10 years from an insured standpoint and climate have been unusual," he said. "The answer is they haven't." (We commented on the subject of climate change two days ago, invoking Aristotle's Golden Mean ideal; and we challenged both sides of the debate). -dh
Comment and link: We earlier commented on LNG competition.
Here, Peter Tertzakian of the Globe and Mail gives further insight on the softening LNG market for British Columbia exports. Are not some of Canada's LNG export concerns ones that we Alaskans share. In both Alaska's land Canada's cases, LNG market demand and competition are exacerbated by local political interests striving to obtain for themselves and their constituencies all possible benefits — even if the end result is achieving 100% success in gaining benefits for projects that became embroiled and then doomed in a sea of local and national political struggles.
To quote our reference at the Globe and Mail: Japanese benchmark prices for LNG in Asia have been exceptionally high since the Fukushima nuclear disaster, almost exactly three years ago. Concurrently, domestic Canadian natural gas prices have been anomalously low. The resulting “differential” between the two was $15.70 (U.S.) for one million British thermal units (MMBtu) at its widest in July, 2012. It’s been that massive price gap, or arbitrage, that triggered the buy-low-sell-high opportunity to build LNG export facilities in North America, including 14 projects off the west coast of B.C.
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