Dave Haugen, AGDC, TAPS, ASAP, Dave Harbour PhotoTom Brennan, Anchorage Daily Planet, Alaska State DeficitSee Sunday's TAPS Pioneer Op-Ed by Dave Haugen (NGP Photo-L)

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Anchodrage Daily Planet,
"Dealing with a $3.5 billion deficit", by Tom Brennan (NGP Photo)


ALASKAN PIPE & LNG POLITICS / ECONOMICS.  ADN.  In a tense marathon meeting that one lawmaker likened to an “inquisition,” Republican legislators blasted the state’s gas line team after learning that a lack of agreement between the state and its partners in the massive Alaska LNG project may preclude a special session this fall, possibly leading to costly delays.   

CANADIAN PIPE & LNG POLITICS / ECONOMICS.  Petroleum News, by Gary Park.  The LNG train may be pulling out of the station, leaving a host of stranded passengers on the platform. That is the essence of a message from energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie, which has delivered the bleakest outlook yet for global LNG, suggesting the window slammed at least six months ago on a raf….

(Comment: Wood Mackenzie addresses (above – left) Canadian LNG project prospects.  Note that the competing Alaska project involves 1) a more expensive pipeline transporting gas to tidewater liquefaction facilities; 2) more expensive logistics; 3) a more expensive climate; and 4) a financially insolvent state government, some of whose leaders look greedily at establishing higher or newer industry taxes.   We sympathize more with producers than with a fiscally irresponsible state government.  Producers pay almost 90% of the state operating budget but are attacked by snake-oil politicians who need to demonize real-oil in order to both obscure their own senseless spending and defend their move toward even more predatory business taxes.  If politicians successfully raise taxes and do not make necessary spending cuts, they will be putting into place an economic death spiral for Alaska whose full impact will be felt more harshly with each passing year.  -dh)

ADN by Jeanette Lee Falsey.  Business leaders throughout Alaska have begun publicly staking out positions on the state's fiscal crisis in advance of next year's legislative session. It's clear not all of them agree exactly about how lawmakers should go about the delicate task of balancing revenue with spending.

There's widespread consensus about the crux of the problem: state government is spending billions more than it is bringing in and oil prices are not projected to rise high enough to prevent Alaska from burning through its savings in the next few years. Lawmakers need to make big changes in 2016 to prevent the state from going broke.  More….

Note: See our August comment regarding negative outlooks for current and pending credit ratings, entitled, "Outrageous Decisions".  -dh)

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Petroleum News, by ​ Alan Baily.  The Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority has selected five businesses as finalists for evaluation of proposals for the delivery of natural gas to the City of Fairbanks. The selection comes as part of the Interior Energy Project, an initiative to bring affordable energy to Fairbanks and the surrounding region of the Alaska Interior.   The finalists are Harvest Alaska LLC, an affiliate of Hilcorp Alaska LLC; Phoenix Clean Fuels LLC; Salix Inc.; Spectrum LNG LLC; and WesPac Midstream LLC. All of the proposals involve the production of liquefied natural gas for use in Fairbanks, with two companies proposing an LNG plant on the North Slope and three companies proposing LNG from Cook Inlet. However, WesPac has also suggested the possibility of importing cheap LNG from Canada.  

(Comment.  As South Central Alaska rate payers pay for their own gas, electricity and supporting distribution and power production facilities, Fairbanks lobbyists bank on a state government teetering on insolvency to finance a brand new natural gas utility.  -dh)