Your author is with the IOGCC in Lexington this week, last night presenting to Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear (NGP Photo with author) an Alaska state legislative citation honoring the Moratoria Study Group.    More coming....         Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear and Kentucky Colonel Dave Harbour (l)  

    Commentary:  CH2M Hill's Tom Maloney (NGP Photo) opened the Resource Development Council (RDC) weekly meeting this morning amid an atmosphere of significant energy policy challenges.  These revolve primarily around 1) ANWR oil and gas access, and 2) diminishing Cook Inlet energy supplies and declining 'deliverability' during the coldest, darkest days of winter:       Executive Director Jason Brune (NGP Photo-r) inventoried RDC's issues du jour, including: An action alert urging members to provide testimony to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service now inviting comment on its effort to revise the "Comprehensive Conservation [...]

See Shell's 5-14-10 Letter to MMS FERC's Extension Rejection: Alaska Dispatch, ADN Comment: We detected deep divisions of policy among the three-member Congressional delegation yesterday but prefer to focus on the pro-business stances each took.  Senator Lisa Murkowski, in particular, focused like a laser on the flood of Obama Administration initiatives designed to drown free enterprise in the 49th state, which she dubbed an 'assault'.  At the end of the presentation we asked if she would include a list of such assaults on Alaska on her website and she said [...]

ADN.  Gov. Sean Parnell (NGP Photo) last week signed a pair of bills crafted by Anchorage and Kenai legislators to try to boost Cook Inlet gas exploration and create natural gas storage options for reducing the winter supply crunch. The state tax concessions in the bills are huge: for their drilling, companies can shave tens of millions of dollars off their income and production tax liabilities.  State Sen. Tom Wagoner, R-Kenai, predicted a "stampede" of companies will descend on the Inlet to drill.  Some major Cook Inlet producers like Conoco Phillips, Marathon [...]

 Alaska State Legislature Citation Honoring NARUC and IOGCC:      

ADN.  Tony Palmer (NGP Photo Archive), TransCanada's vice president for Alaska development, said that the project is likely to see bids in the last day or two of the open season, the three-month-long period when it seeks commitments from gas owners to use the pipeline.  TransCanada's open season started barely two weeks ago and it set to run through July.  (See our earlier story.)   Vancouver Sun.  China on Thursday beefed up its Canadian oilsands portfolio with a $1.25-billion cash injection in Penn West Energy Trust.  (See earlier China - [...]

Governor's Office.  Governor Sean Parnell (NGP Photo-r) today signed into law House Bill 280, the Cook Inlet Recovery Act.  HB 280, sponsored by Representative Mike Hawker (NGP Photo-l) and House Speaker Mike Chenault (NGP Photo), provides the legal framework and financial incentives for developing large-scale natural gas storage facilities throughout the state. The legislation is aimed at providing benefits for consumers not only in Southcentral but also in Fairbanks, where gas could be shipped from the North Slope. The bill adjusts Cook Inlet tax credits to encourage exploration for and development of new gas. And [...]

Governor's Office Release: Governor Sean Parnell (NGP Photo) today submitted comments (here) on upcoming revisions to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) Comprehensive Conservation Plan by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). A new refuge plan could potentially affect the most promising unexplored petroleum region in North America. ... “Responsible oil and gas development in ANWR’s coastal plain would provide a secure on-shore domestic supply source of energy for the nation, create tens of thousands of jobs throughout the country, and ensure the continued operation of the Trans Alaska Pipeline System for [...]

KTVA/Fairbanks News Miner.  Feds Support Pipeline. TransCanada's Tony Palmer (NGP Photo) Gives Chamber a Gas Pipeline Update At noon today, Tony Palmer told the Anchorage Chamber of Commerce that the Open Season commencing on April 30 will be on schedule and completed by July 30, leading to a filing with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in the the Fall for a certificate of public convenience and necessity to build and operate the pipeline.  He spoke of the unprecedented transparency of the project, noting that 1200 pages of information on the [...]

ADN/PNA by Eric Lidji.  The Regulatory Commission of Alaska is letting four owners of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline keep charging higher shipping rates on oil bound for Alaska markets while it continues investigating whether the rate increases are reasonable. CBC.  Bob McLeod (NGP Photo) said if the blowout — which has led to a massive oil spill off the coast of Louisiana — leads to tighter U.S. environmental restrictions on oil production, there could be more demand for natural gas from places like the N.W.T.'s Mackenzie Delta, where a gas pipeline has [...]