Check for our BOEMRE hearing story and photos to be uploaded soon!  If you did not comment on the proposed 2012-2017 leasing program, send your comments here before March 31. NOT TO BE MISSED: Alaskans and Canadians finding themselves in Anchorage on Wednesday, will find much value in the Captain Cook Hotel luncheon forum on the Future of Alaska.  Moderated by Alaska radio personality Dan Fagan (NGP Photo) the panel features an impressive cast of Northern energy experts and observers.   ADN by Tim Bradner (NGP Photo)--It's time for a talk [...]

Comment: We urge all participants in last night's hearing to 1) send us your written comments and we will link them for you on this webpage, and 2) write and tell us of any additions or corrections you recommend for our work here to help us maintain the highest degree of factual accuracy.  While readers may disagree with our editorial opinion from time to time, we should all be able to agree on facts.  From facts flow assumptions and theories and from them flow public policies.  Facts, therefore, matter; your [...]

  GREATER FAIRBANKS CHAMBER OF COMMERCE (GFCC) NATURAL RESOURCES COMMITTEE TO HOST COFFEE, CROISSANTS & COMMENTS EVENT FOR OUTER CONTINENTAL OIL & GAS LEASE PUBLIC SCOPING PERIOD   On Wednesday, March 9, the GFCC’s Natural Resources Committee will host “Coffee, Croissants & Comments” from 7am until 11am at the Chamber office (located at 100 Cushman Street (attached to the Key Bank Building downtown) to give members of the Chamber and the community the opportunity to submit public comment to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) regarding [...]

Monday Miscellany and Commentary Over the weekend, we participated in Governor Sean Parnell's Prayer Breakfast (NGP Photo, with Ravi Zacharias), in the Iditarod Dog Sled Race Startup, and in Fur Rendezvous events.  See our notes and photos below and read why we include these items in 'Northern Gas Pipelines' In a Washington Times article last Thursday by Elizabeth Wong and Josh Brown our own Doug Smith and Mark Hylan and Rep. Scott Kawasaki took different sides in the debate of Alaska's investment climate.  We believe the evidence continues to mount that if Kawasaki's [...]

ADN by (AP) Becky Bohrer.  BP PLC has joined Conoco Phillips in saying it expects its capital investment in the state to be flat this year. Financial Post by (Reuters) Oil companies behind a $16.2-billion plan to build a gas pipeline from the Canadian Arctic expect to restart talks with Ottawa shortly over financial support in hopes of striking a deal by mid-year, the head of one of the partners said on Wednesday.  The players have scheduled a conference call for next week to hammer out a timetable for the discussions, [...]

See Resource Development Council for Alaska Call to Action HERE, and the Alliance notice below!   Proposed 2012-2017 Five-Year Plan for Oil and Gas Leasing Program: Scoping for Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) ANCHORAGE Offshore Oil and Gas 2012-2017 Scoping Hearing Friday, February 25 7:00 PM (Arrive Early to Sign Up) 3801 Centerpoint Dr. (36th Ave. & C St.)   Public Hearings in Alaska: Kotzebue, AK: Feb 14: 7 PM, Point Hope, AK: Feb 15: 7 PM, Point Lay, AK: Feb 16: 7 PM, Wainwright, AK: Feb 17: 7 PM, [...]

Comment.  Earlier this month, your author addressed the Kenai Chamber of Commerce.  Later that day, ConocoPhillips and Marathon announced discontinuation of the Kenai LNG facility and we broke the news here about the Nigerian purchase of Agrium's facilities.  We noted the giant equipment required for the project and later reported that Robert Roest of Mammoet USA (providing much of the massive moving equipment) could make that equipment available for other large jobs this summer.  One of our readers is a 41-year industry veteran and former Alyeska Pipeline president, David Wight (NGP [...]

Comment:  Our Interior Secretary, like his Chief Executive, looks at serious issues through the eyes of an incompetent manager.  That's assuming absence of mal intent.  Mal management or incompetent management has produced arbitrary and capricious use of the Endangered Species Act, misuse of the Clean Air Act, rogue rulemaking, passive-aggressive permitting designed to delay or halt economic activity on federal lands.  See Ed Wynn's video interview below.  Our editorials over the last two years have documented this abuse of power in detail. One of our respected attorney readers (reformed father [...]

 ...inspired again by our Founders' success and sobered by our responsibility to sustain their vision! Today--freshly returned from Washington, D.C.--your author (NGP Photo) has the honor of being a guest on KFQD radio this afternoon at 2 p.m. with Mary Ann Pease (NGP Photo).  There are plenty of issues for us to explore--all related to the sustainability of the American experiment and threats to the Alaskan economy.  Jason Brune of the Resource Development Council for Alaska will be on the show next week with more details about the important, upcoming [...]

We Return to Anchorage Today After NARUC Meetings -dh Alaska Dispatch by Patti Epler.  Former Gov. Frank Murkowski (NGP Photo) has been making the rounds of business groups and writing commentaries about the state's need to revamp its oil tax structure to make Alaska more competitive. But the former governor and U.S. senator has thoughts on other state issues, too, including the proposed natural gas pipeline from the North Slope to Canada and his political rival former Gov. Sarah Palin's plan to get it built. In a far-ranging interview with Alaska Dispatch, [...]

Can one day change the course of history?  Help us! Friday, February 25, 7:00 p.m., 3801 Centerpoint Drive (off 36th Avenue), Anchorage Here is some background information for you to use in your planning.  And...in case you can't join us at one of the the actual hearings, here is how you can easily comment online!  Here is an email provided by an NGP reader this week that is written by a 'Field Organizer' of the Sierra Club using sophisticated techniques to organize testimony designed to shut down the economic hope and promise of Alaska. [...]

  We lament the current travail borne by our friends in Egypt and Jordan, and pray for them.  (NGP Photo: Nubian, Arabic teacher, upper Nile -- and our guide and Facebook friend weeping for joy at a special moment.   January 2010)  -dh Journal of Commerce by Tim Bradner (NGP Photo).  Alaska legislators say they're frustrated with lack of progress by TransCanada Corp. in securing shipping contracts for a planned $40 billion-plus Alaska natural gas pipeline, and some are arguing for terminating the state's contract with the pipeline company, under which [...]