The Race Is On; Alaska Lawmakers Give Greenlight To TransCanada
The decades-long struggle to being stranded gas from Alaska’s North Slope may be one more step closer to ending. Alaskan state senators have given the OK to granting a license to TransCanada Corp. to build the 1,700-mile gas line.
The statistics: The line would carry about 4.5 billion cubic feet of gas a day to the Alberta Hub and then to markets in the Lower 48. It won’t come cheap–TransCanada has estimated the cost at between $26- and $30 billion.
The license that has been granted by Alaska doesn’t mean the first shovel of dirt will be turned for the line’s construction. What it does guarantee is the state handing the Canadian company $500 million in seed money that will be used for helping pay for the federal permitting process. If all goes perfect, without any snags–lawsuits, injunctions, hearings, etc.–the pipeline could be, could be, operational by 2018.
What the Alaskan lawmakers have done is set up a race between TransCanada and a competing project put forward by BP Plc and ConocoPhillips. The two companies did not take part in the official bidding for the project because they said it was too restrictive.
The vote was welcomed by Gov. Sarah Palin, a key backer of the TransCanada plan from the beginning. She said, “It will be our Alaska gas flowing to provide aid to those in the Lower 48, who are turning to Alaska, waiting and wanting Alaska to help.”
There is another rub, which will be key in the upcoming months and years–TransCanada is not a leaseholder on the North Slope. BP and ConocoPhillips are. That should make for some very interesting talks in the future.
Stay tuned. More to come. This story is far from being over.
–John A. Sullivan, News Editor, Oil and Gas Investor, www.OilandGasInvestor.com, jsullivan@hartenergy.com
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August 5th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
When does BP and ConocoPhillips leases expire?
Excellent article.