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Politics : New FADG. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jttmab who wrote (456)	5/19/2007 9:42:21 AM
From: Hawkmoon	Respond to of 4152

Thanks for the information.. I did a quick websearch on the Point Thomson field and it appears that Gov Murkowski asserts that the failure to develop the field has resulted in a delay in having a gas pipeline built. Presumably he believes that, by opening up the field to a new lease, he regains the state's leverage in making sure that pipeline is constructed in a timely manner. Murkowski said that under the proper lease terms, the Point Thomson reserves could be an incentive for companies to develop the long-cherished Alaskan goal of building a natural gas pipeline. He suggested that if companies were required to develop the field's as-yet untapped oil reserves using an existing oil pipeline, they would want to achieve economies of scale by developing the natural gas at the same time. "This in turn will create an incentive and a need for new Point Thomson leases to construct a new gas pipeline," Murkowski said. "And likely they would now look on it as a motivation for building sooner rather than later." He said it also could inspire potential new players, like Chevron, Shell and others, to take part in a new natural gas line contract proposal. iht.com IF ACCURATE, then I would agree with Murkowski. The state government has an obligation to preserve the state's (citizen's) interest in insuring that company's that "tie up" state assets (the oil/gas field) act properly to develop it in a timely manner. And given that the people of Alaska participate in these revenues via the Permanent Fund, it's residents are being denied their share of the financial benefits to having this field developed. Hawk

To: jttmab who wrote (456)	5/19/2007 6:29:11 PM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4152

"Once you get to be a real "Mr. President" you'll have people that can look that up for you." He'll have better than that. He'll have the Rat locked down to one of his drilling rigs. And, if he's lucky, he'll have experts to tell him how to get around this growing problem... Melting permafrost also means trouble for the oil industry. Oil companies build pipelines and roads on it to support drilling on the North Shore. To minimize damage to Arctic tundra, oil companies explore for oil on Alaska's North Slope only when roads are frozen with a foot of ice and six inches of snow. The ice-road season has dropped from 200 days a year in 1970 to 103 days in 2002, according to Alaska state documents. "It is unlikely the oil industry can implement successful exploration and development plans with a winter work season consistently less than 120 days," an Alaska Department of Natural Resources budget document said in March. commondreams.org I believe they were down to 75 days in '06.