Legislators and the state’s industry partners in the big gas pipeline project are still scratching their heads on the implications of Gov. Bill Walker’s Feb. 18 announcement that he would like to scale up the state-backed “plan B” gas project being planned by the state’s Alaska Gasline Development Corp.
That “plan B”, the state’s Alaska Stand-Alone Pipeline, or ASAP, is now planned to move only 500 million cubic feet of gas a day as a backstop project to supply communities with gas. Walker, however, wants to expand the project to move 2 billion-plus cubic feet of gas per day, a scale that would be a competitor to the big project in which the state is now a 25 percent partner.
House and Senate leaders say Walker’s plan will confuse potential LNG buyers just as the North Slope gas producers are beginning gas marketing efforts for the big project.
The companies said they are studying the governor’s announcement to see if his proposal does actually create a competing project. If it does, it could affect their partnership with the state and the project itself, they said.
ExxonMobil Corp. spokeswoman Kim Jordan said, “Now that the governor has announced that the State of Alaska is sponsoring a project in direct competition with the Alaska LNG Project, we are assessing the impact on our forward plans.”
Another project partner, ConocoPhillips, is taking a wait-and-see position. “We are still reviewing the announcement and looking forward to understanding what, if anything, has changed,” company spokeswoman Natalie Lowman said.
Walker said in his announcement that he still supports the large gas project and that a larger state ASAP project would move forward only if the industry partners do not want to move forward.
Via alaskajournal.com
image credit ADN.com
