ADN by Richard Mauer.  So, you don’t believe TransCanada will ever get enough customers to build a gas line to the Lower 48 or Valdez? And you think it even more likely that Conoco Phillips and BP’s Denali gas project is doomed, since it has neither the state license nor the half-billion-dollar subsidy that TransCanada has?  And that bullet line from the North Slope to Southcentral Alaska: Do you want to spend three times as much as you do now on gas, for the next 50 or so years?  Enter the "stub to hub" line, something Anchorage businessman and financial adviser David Gottstein (NGP Photo) has been quietly pushing for the last year and a half. His idea: The state should finance, through bonds or direct investment, a big-diameter gas pipeline from the North Slope to a hub near Fairbanks, perhaps at Livengood.

Calgary Herald.  Shale Gas – Federal regulators have approved a $307 million pipeline project that will help open the remote Horn River play in northeastern British Columbia to Alberta and markets beyond.

Examiner by Deborah Brollini (NGP Photo).  Alaska could be in a different economic position if it wasn’t for our own state government, and federal government interference.  However the good news is, that if these barriers were removed, our state could be booming with oil exploration and drilling; which is also known as capital investment.  North Dakota was on the path Alaska has chosen to be on, and the outcome was disastrous to their economy.  North Dakota did experience an oil boom in the early 80s.  However, in the mid-80s, their state legislature raised taxes on the oil industry, and the industry exited the state.   In 2005, North Dakota reduced oil taxes dramatically, and the industry returned with capital investment.   Capital investment poured into North Dakota, which resulted in increased jobs, and billions of dollars flooding into their state’s economy.   (See our earlier story and photos.)