10-4-12
Calgary Herald by Steven Ewart. Keystone XL brings Canada into presidential debate.
ADN by Lisa Demer. Shell Oil is now drilling wells
in two Arctic seas off Alaska's northern coast. Drilling began Wednesday afternoon in the Beaufort Sea after the end of an Inupiat whale hunt, according to Curtis Smith (NGP Photo), spokesman for Shell Alaska. The company resumed drilling in the Chukchi Sea on Sept. 23 after a two-week suspension due to encroaching sea ice, he said. But Shell still won't be able to drill deep enough to reach oil this year. An oil spill containment dome, an essential piece of safety gear, was damaged during testing last month in a Bellingham shipyard.
“I’m encouraged that the companies have made significant .JPG)
progress in advancing a project and an associated schedule for commercializing North Slope gas,” Governor Parnell (NGP Photo-R) said. “Clearly, they have fully shifted their efforts to an Alaska LNG project.” (Note: this morning, Alaska's Commissioner of Natural Resources, Dan Sullivan {NGP Photo-l} will meet the press to discuss Governor Parnell's announcement. Check here tomorrow morning for more updates! -dh)
Huffington Post: A liquefied natural gas project in Alaska could cost morethan $65 billion and would represent a mega-project of "unprecedented scale and challenge," officials behind the project told Gov. Sean Parnell. In a letter to Parnell released by the governor's office late Wednesday, officials with TransCanada Corp. and the North Slope's three major players said
good progress has been made in pursuing a project. But they said "significant environmental, regulatory, engineering and commercial work remains to reach upcoming decisions to bring North Slope gas to market." They estimated the cost of a pipeline project could range from $45 billion to more than $65 billion, involve up to 1.7 million tons of steel and employ up to 
15,000 people during peak construction and more than 1,000 in Alaska permanently. The project concept description lists capacity for a large-diameter line at 3 billion to 3.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas a day. It does not specify the terminus for any line, only that it would
run from the North Slope about 800 miles to south-central Alaska. "We will continue to keep you advised of our progress and stand committed to work with the state to responsibly develop its considerable resources," the officials said in their letter. The letter was signed by Randy Broiles (NGP Photo, above left) of Exxon Mobil Production Co., Trond-Erik Johansen (NGP Photo-L) of ConocoPhillips Alaska,John Minge (NGP Photo) of BP Exploration Alaska and Tony Palmer (NGP Photo) of TransCanada.
(See: Bloomberg story).
Just for fun: The Center for Biological Diversity's environmental activism on relatively benign pipelines is just as active in Puerto Rico as in Alaska:
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced today it will protect a rare, recently discovered Puerto Rican frog, the coquí llanero, as an endangered species under the Endangered Species Act. The protection includes 615 acres of freshwater wetland as critical habitat in northern Puerto Rico. The tiny frog " about 15 millimeters long, the span of a dime " has been waiting for federal protection since 2007. The decision was made in accordance with a landmark settlement agreement with the Center for Biological Diversity requiring the agency to expedite protection decisions for 757 species.
