Gas line stirs Midwest interest -
MIDAMERICAN: Energy giant says it plans to submit an application in the fall.
adn.com
The Associated Press
Published: August 11, 2007
Last Modified: August 11, 2007 at 05:38 AM
A Midwest energy giant has emerged as the first company to officially commit interest in building a natural gas pipeline on the North Slope.
MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co. and its partners plan to submit an application to the state this fall, CEO David L. Sokol told Petroleum News, though he wouldn't identify the partners.
The company is the parent of Kern River Gas Transmission Co., which has served as MidAmerican's lead for the Alaska gas line project.
Earlier this week, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin pushed the application deadline back from Oct. 1 to Nov. 30.
Two developments drove this change, said Nan Thompson, a member of Palin's energy team: More companies have begun to inquire about the project, and the state has received feedback calling for additional time to prepare a complete application.
Palin has said she thinks the line will one day ship trillions of cubic feet of reserves to market. Applications became available July 3, not long after Palin signed the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act into law.
AGIA has been strongly touted by Palin, who succeeded in getting it passed at the end of the 2007 legislative session despite intense criticism from oil giants BP, Conoco Phillips and Exxon Mobil.
Those companies, which own a controlling interest in the 800-mile trans-Alaska oil pipeline, have said they must also own a controlling interest in a gas line in order to keep project costs down.
AGIA as written won't work, they say. None has indicated whether it will file an application.
Paul Laird, general manager of the Alaska Support Industry Alliance, told Petroleum News he expects two of the three companies to file, "possibly with partners, one or more applications that do not conform to AGIA's specifications."
Sokol said plans for his company's application will move forward unless producers are implicated in the FBI investigations of several Alaska state and federal lawmakers, which he said would negatively affect the project.
"Our intention is to file under AGIA, but whether we do depends on the circumstances between now and the filing date," he said. "The unfortunate corruption scandals involving the oil and gas industry in Alaska that have been published in the press -- we just don't know where it will stop."
Earlier this summer, oil services company Veco CEO Bill Allen pleaded guilty to bribing state legislators.
Two influential members of Alaska's congressional delegation, Sen. Ted Stevens and Rep. Don Young, both Republicans, are now under investigation for their relationships with Veco but have not been charged.
Three former Republican state legislators have also been indicted since December for accepting bribes from Allen and other high-ranking Veco officers. Stevens' son, Ben, former president of the state Senate, also is under investigation for ties to Veco but has not been charged. |
