ADN by Lisa Demer.  A bill to develop a natural gas pipeline from the North Slope to Southcentral Mike Chenault, Speaker of the House, Representative, Nikiski, gas pipeline, hb 9, Photo by Dave HarbourAlaska passed the state House early Wednesday despite efforts of Democrats to kill or revamp the measure.  House Speaker Mike Chenault, (NGP Photo), is the prime sponsor of House Bill 9, which gives a subsidiary of the Alaska Housing Finance Corp. the power to get a $7.5 billion pipeline built or become a partner in a bigger line or a spur.

Larry Persily, Alaska Gas Pipeline, Federal Coordinator, Photo by Dave HarbourLarry Persily (NGP Photo), Alaska Gas Pipeline Federal Coordinator.  China has tremendous shale gas resources, Russia wants to move aggressively into the LNG export business, and the potential for North American LNG projects to sign up customers in Asia "may not be open indefinitely," said Ian Nathan, manager for global gas and LNG research at Energy Intelligence.

 
 

Mining.  The Canadian government will disclose new guidelines this week to reduce the time it takes for environmental reviews of major energy and industrial projects, in a move that Reuters qualifies as an attempt to help the oil industry.   Appearing Tuesday at the House of Commons Natural Resources Committee, federal Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver confirmed the government aims to speed up test for industrial projects that he said are dragging on far too long — several years in some cases.  “It’s possible to make regulatory decisions in a reasonable amount of time without compromising the rigor or the standards of the process […] Our ultimate goal is simple but not necessarily easy to achieve: one project, one review, in a clearly defined time frame,” said Oliver, as quoted by Reuters.  As Mining.com reported last week, Prime Minister Stephen Harper is particularly keen to speed up development of the Alberta oil sands, the third-largest proven crude oil reserve in the world, as the country tries to build oil-exporting capacity.


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