>The problem is no natural gas readily available to power additional plants there from what I can determine.
There will be if you invest in Alaska. I've bought property right on the spot where the natural gas pipeline will come down.
>
ANCHORAGE -- For decades, Alaska's northern fringe has been intensively searched for large deposits of oil. Petroleum-industry crews are fanning across the North Slope again this winter, but this time some of them are looking for other riches: natural gas.
During the next three months, dozens of surveyors, heavy-equipment operators and support staff will fire powerful volleys of sound into the ground - known as seismic testing - to learn the subsurface geology of the hilly, snow-covered tundra.
Tight supplies and rapidly growing demand have focused new attention on Alaska's huge but geographically remote natural-gas reserves.
The current market imbalance has dramatically raised gas prices, long seen as an impediment to development. In addition, equipment improvements and regulatory changes have suddenly made viable a pipeline project that would link Alaska to North America's gas infrastructure.
The North Slope holds proven reserves of 35 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, but it's believed that vast amounts more remain to be found. The United States currently consumes about 21.5 trillion cubic feet of gas per year, with demand expected to grow by about 2 percent annually for the next two decades.
Alaska's three major oil producers - BP, Phillips Petroleum and Exxon Mobil - control nearly all of the known gas reserves. They are working together on a $75 million study of the gas-development project.
Gov. Tony Knowles and other Alaska political leaders are pushing a $10 billion, 2,000-mile route that would start at Prudhoe Bay and run along highways in Alaska and northwestern Canada to Alberta, where it would tie into an existing pipeline network linked to the Lower 48.
A rival route would extend east from Prudhoe Bay into Canada along the Arctic Ocean coast before heading south along the Mackenzie River.
The Arctic-coast route would be about 300 miles shorter and an estimated $2 billion cheaper than the Alaska route, and it could be used to transport some of the 9 trillion cubic feet of known natural gas in far northern Canada.
A gas line isn't the only project that could tap North Slope gas.
Several companies, including Phillips and BP, have been studying how to convert the gas to a waxy liquid fuel that could be sold domestically or overseas. Another project calls for liquefying the natural gas and sending it by tanker to Asia or the Lower 48.
Also still to be decided is ownership of any gas line. Three communities along one of the prospective pipeline routes have formed a port authority - they say public ownership of the line would be exempt from federal taxes, which could cut billions of dollars from the project cost.
BP, Phillips and Exxon Mobil have assembled a team of about 50 engineers and regulatory experts to sort through the various issues, with a decision on a route expected later this year. If all goes smoothly, a gas line could be completed by 2007, said Joe Marushack, vice president of gas commercialization at Phillips Alaska.
While the recent high natural-gas prices may have raised interest in an Alaska gas line, developers say they are not counting on prices to remain at current levels. Natural gas is selling for about $7.70 per thousand cubic feet. That's down from more than $10 last month, but more than three times higher than the price a year ago.
"We have to have a pipeline project that is as low-cost as possible so that it will weather not just the good times, but the low gas-price times as well," Marushack said. |
