Info emerges about the mystery bidder, AEnergia LLC...
Little-known AGIA applicant has eyed project for decades
newsminerextra.com
The five companies applying to build a natural gas pipeline in Alaska vary from a multinational oil firm, to a leading pipeline company, to homegrown municipal and state entities, to a big question mark.
Even the government officials announcing the applicants seemed short on information about AEnergia LLC.
While the company is less than a week old, AEnergia’s employees have been working on a natural gas pipeline for nearly 30 years, according to Bill Burkhard, an AEnergia executive based in Sacramento, Calif.
He began working on the original natural gas pipeline project in the late 1970s as an earth scientist, flying up to Alaska at the end of construction on the trans-Alaska oil pipeline, when North Slope natural gas production seemed both imminent and inevitable.
“We’ve been actively pursuing this thing for a long time,” Burkhard said Tuesday.
Working on the pipeline, Burkhard met other engineers and stayed in touch even after the first attempt at a natural gas pipeline failed in the 1980s. One of the people he met during that time was Andrew Taber of the Sacramento geotechnical firm Taber Consultants.
Burkhard and Taber partnered under the name GSS and formed a joint venture with Taber Consultants called GSS/TC, which worked toward building a natural gas pipeline in 2001 based on a perceived increase in government and industry interest in the project.
“It hit my radar,” Burkhard said.
Since 2002, the Web site for GSS/TC has featured only an outline of the state of Alaska, lit up by a white flame and the words “We are ready…”
Taber said his firm brings “business acumen” and experience to the project. Founded more than 50 years ago, Taber Consultants is one of the oldest geotechnical firms in the country, according to Taber.
“We’ve just been around a long time,” he said.
AEnergia is one of the companies that submitted a proposal last week to build all or part of a pipeline to market Alaska North Slope natural gas.
TransCanada Corp., Sinopec ZPEB and the Alaska Gasline Port Authority also submitted bids for a full pipeline under the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act, created earlier this year to provide incentives for construction. The Alaska Natural Gas Development Authority submitted a bid to build a spur to Anchorage.
ConocoPhillips also submitted a proposal to build a pipeline but intentionally did not follow the requirements of AGIA.
Burkhard did not originally intend to build a pipeline, only to work on the geotechnical elements of the project. But he said AGIA, by opening up the process to any eligible applicant, forced the company to bid in order to get in on the project.
Burkhard and Taber formed AEnergia on Nov. 30, the same day applications were due under the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act.
The new company brings together more than 100 people from firms around the country who Burkhard said are “lined up” to work on the project, even as they are currently employed by other firms. Many of those engineers have been working toward an Alaska natural gas pipeline on and off since the late 1970s.
Burkhard declined to discuss the scope, model and other details of AEnergia’s proposal until the state finishes reviewing the AGIA applications, but he did say the line would likely go through Canada and added that the proposal would increase the significance of earth sciences in the process.
“The hardest part is going to be the earth sciences,” Burkhard said.
By starting with geotechnical expertise, Burkhard believes his company can cut costs on the project by “avoiding” problems in construction rather than “cleverly mitigating” them.
“We’ve amassed the essential expertise and research already on our team,” Burkhard said. He believes those people and their existing research will allow AEnergia to begin a field program next spring if it wins the application process.
When asked if he was concerned about securing a supply of natural gas from leaseholders on the North Slope, Burkhard declined to comment “in respect for the AGIA process.” |
