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 Open Season had been filed on January 29 and that an additional 2000 documents regarding land, geotechnical and environmental data would be available at four "data rooms" located in Anchorage, Whitehorse, Calgary and Houston.  TransCanada’s Open Season allows parties to seek capacity on two projects: the North Slope to Alberta option, costing some $32-41 billion, or the North Slope to Valdez option whose capital cost is estimated at between $20-26 billion and implies that shippers will be converting gas locally into petrochemical feedstock or transforming it into liquefied natural gas (LNG) and transporting via oceangoing cryogenic tankers to distant markets.  I submitted a question dealing with the fact that TransCanada operates under the assumption that its project has been vetted and approved by the 1979-era governments of the United States and Canada and would be, accordingly, expedited under American and Canadian law, whereas the competing project would be starting the application process from scratch.  Listen to this audio for his answer to this and other questions as he makes important distinction between the Northern Pipeline Agency advantage in Canada and the equalizing effect the 2004 Alaska Natural Gas Pipeline Act has had on both TransCanada and its competitor in the U.S. ….  -dh  (See Reuters Story by Yereth Rosen)

Audio:

Tony Palmer 5-10-10.WAV