ChristopHer E. Smith
Pipeline Editor
On the eve of Election Day 2010 in the US, much work needs to be done on a number of fronts, both regarding the energy industry and other issues.
"Work" is the key word in the preceding sentence. Once all the political battles have been settled for another 2 years, it will again be time to roll up our collective American sleeves and actually start getting things done.
Neither cynicism nor myopia have anything to add to this process; work cannot be properly conducted in their presence.
At the same time, however, applying oneself to solving the problems at hand provides its own cure: if you're busy enough actually pursuing productive goals the mind no longer has the luxury to wander, and the cacophony of discord and strife can be left to those with no productive means of expression.
Diligence and hard work
Fortunately, the various participants in the competing plans to move natural gas south from Alaska's North Slope (ANS) via pipeline seem to understand the importance of diligence and hard work. In the face of an explosion in shale gas production in the Lower 48 states over the past 3 years, open speculation has emerged regarding both the viability and the need for a gas pipeline connecting ANS reserves to major consuming centers.
Neither the Alaska Pipeline Project, comprised of TransCanada Alaska Co. and ExxonMobil Alaska Midstream Gas Investments, nor Denali, owned by subsidiaries of BP PLC and ConocoPhillips, has wavered in their pursuit of a means to economically transport Alaskan natural gas production.
The Alaska Pipeline Project provided the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission with a progress report Oct. 12 on its environmental and engineering work to date, assuring the federal agency that the gas pipeline development team is continuing toward a 2012 project application, citing its commitment under the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act to apply for a certificate of public convenience and necessity by October 2012.
APP reported that its 2010 field program "focused mainly on the northern two thirds of the pipeline route from the North Slope to Delta Junction (548 miles)," with most of the field work on the southern one third of the route planned for 2011.
At the height of its work this year, almost 150 workers were in the field in August, conducting environmental surveys, APP reported. Work focused on cultural resources, fish and wildlife habitats, stream hydrology, wetland mapping and classification, engineering field work, route reconnaissance, fault crossings, geotechnical investigations, and acid rock drainage.
Denali concluded the open seasons for its pipeline Oct. 4, having already spent 700,000 man-hr and $150 million to get to that point.
Total cost estimates for either pipeline and associated facilities are $30-35 billion, prompting Federal Coordinator for Alaska Natural Gas Transportation Projects Larry Persily to note that the real obstacles for the gas line are the natural gas market and the project's economics.
The task at hand
Persily called on Alaska to acknowledge in its fiscal structure the risk taken on by those who would build and operate the pipeline and to create a reasonable tax structure for them. He also noted that though politics could not get the line built, they could hurt the chances of this happening, as could overly optimistic political promises regarding the pipeline's benefits to the state of Alaska, greed, and the desire to pursue seemingly easier alternatives (e.g. an in-state only line).
US President Barack Obama backs up his appointee's efforts with his own support of an Alaskan natural gas pipeline, touting as recently as Sept. 27 in a letter to the Sixth Annual Alaska Oil & Gas Congress both the added energy security and jobs that would be provided by the project.
His closing comment? "Thank you for your work." So, after the Nov. 2 elections, may we all return to the tasks at hand.
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