TPT May 2009

From the AmericaS

projects have roughly equivalent time-lines for completion. Both rest on hopes of a bright future for natural gas. A company formed by ConocoPhillips (Houston, Texas) and Britain’s BP Plc is proceeding without incentives from Alaska. By the attenuated standards of pipeline building, the plans for its Denali project are well advanced. TransCanada Corp won an exclusive state license to build a pipeline under the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act (AGIA), and with it up to $500 million in state incentives for its $30 billion project. The Canadian company has met with rougher going. The Denali project › A ConocoPhillips executive said at the company’s analyst meeting 11 March, in New York, that his company and partner BP expect to begin accepting bids next year for gas transportation along their pipeline. The plan is to bring Denali into service by 2019, said Ryan Lance, the company’s president of exploration and production for Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East (Dow Jones Newswires, 11 March). BP and ConocoPhillips are third- and fifth-largest, respectively, among the six ‘supermajor’ private-sector energy corporations worldwide. They envision a 2,000-mile pipeline that would bring 2 billion cubic feet of gas a day, or 6-8 per cent of total US daily consumption, from Alaska’s North Slope to the Canadian province of Alberta. A 1,500-mile pipeline extension, from Alberta to Chicago, is also being considered.

› The competing TransCanada proposal is for an expansion of the company’s Keystone pipeline system to serve existing natural gas refineries and markets on the US Gulf Coast. The 1,900-mile, 36" crude oil line would originate in Alberta and extend southeast to a final delivery point in Texas. On 12 March, two Alaska legislators introduced a resolution that would call on the administration of Governor Sarah Palin to revisit the generous financial terms awarded Calgary-based TransCanada last year. On 18 March it was reported in the Chicago Tribune that Alaska state lawmakers received “mixed messages” at an energy conference in Washington DC, where the merits of Governor Palin’s hallmark project were examined. The strongly pipeline-minded governor, who also favours an in-state small-diameter line to deliver North Slope natural gas to urban Alaska markets, defended the TransCanada deal in advance of the first hearing on the reevaluation measure. As reported by Anne Sutton on chicagotribune.com, state Republican Jay Ramras, co-sponsor of the resolution asking for a review, answered the governor’s defence by citing a ‘plate tectonics shift’ under way in the energy world. In this view, the global recession, together with the exploitation of new sources of natural gas, are creating surpluses in the Lower 48 (states of the US) that could depress prices for years to come. “Only a government is capable of going on autopilot and staying put,” Mr Ramras said. “In the private sector, we revisit.” Dorothy Fabian , Features Editor (USA)

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The Keystone project

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