Gasline defenders struggle

By
Suzanne Downing
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IT’S GETTING HARDER TO MAKE SENSE OF THE PROJECT

From this morning’s Must Read Newsletter –The preliminary engineering work for the AK-LNG project is wrapping up. Consultants to the Alaska Legislature issued a report saying the project is uneconomical.

Like a gal giving a fake phone number to a bad blind date, the three remaining partners have backed away from AK-LNG, as Alaska’s governor has become their date from hell.

Dave Harbor knows how it’s going down:  The expert, commenting on the gasline is not giving it good odds.
Pat Race knows: The hippie cultural phenom of Juneau predicts the gasline is dead, so it must be so.
Forbes Magazine agrees with Pat Race: Here’s the eulogy.
John Hendrix gets out the defibrillator paddles: The newest cabinet member of the Walker Administration gave it his best at Resource Development Council. The video here.

Keith Meyer makes a shot on the goal: The new head of the Alaska Gasline Development Corp. promises prosperity for Alaska with a gasline.

OUR TAKE — IT’S STILL OIL IN ALASKA

At the end of the day, oil fuels Alaska’s public employees and the state’s economy. All credible experts point to the fact that gas from Alaska is just not competitive for the foreseeable future.

Alaska should work on oil, not gas, they argue. Case in point, Armstrong Energy  just found one of the largest oil discoveries in North Slope history, enough to put 120,000 barrels into the Trans Alaska Pipeline System every year for the next, say, 25 years.

That will pump $1.2 billion per year into our state budget. Per year.
Then there’s Liberty, Pikka Unit-Nanushuk, Oooguruk and Nikaichuq — all oil plays that resulted from good tax policy.  Oil that brings taxes and royalties.

But Gov. Bill Walker has waved the white flag on oil. He has given up.

Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott, a year ago at the GLACIER conference, pleaded for help to save Alaska from its oil economy:

“We need help to continue, yes in the waning days of the petroleum era, to make the transition from petroleum to a new world built upon renewable energy. We will get there, we need your help. We need to develop Alaska’s resources, a need to do it in a way that recognizes the impact upon the Arctic and the consequences of ill-devised action that would occur and impact climate change if we are not smart and we are not resilient.”

The Walker Administration has thrown the state into a tailspin economically in Walker’s singular quest for a gasline that the oil companies are saying is uneconomical.

Walker says the State won’t need to make money like private sector companies need to make money…But will the State actually lose its shirt on his state-owned gasline project?