About Us…

Dear Reader,

About….

This Northern Energy and Gas Pipelines website has always been a public service effort.  In 2019, Harbour suspended all payments for public service sponsorships but is continuing those ads out of appreciation for years of faithful sponsorship and support.  Harbour will continue to make updates as possible and will maintain the site as a family project to assure the valuable archives continue to be available to the thousands of energy researchers in industry, education government and the media.

Its Founder, Dave Harbour, has desired to see the Arctic Gas project he supported in the 1970s as a young professional finally come to completion in some modern, economically feasible form. In his websites (www.northerngaspipelines.com & www.arcticgaspipeline.com), he has not advocated for any particular gas pipeline route but has tried to effectively report and comment on them all while highlighting both benefits and infeasibility of projects.  We note that he became vigorously critical of Alaska’s increasingly socialistic government (i.e. until 2019) acting to control gas transportation and distribution projects via equity ownership and gubernatorial fiat.  He has especially supported ‘due process’ and free market concepts for resolving the many issues and energy transportation alternatives.

The Arctic Gas reference materials and observations he has provided were for historical, research and perhaps entertainment purposes, not promotional, though he always maintained that the Arctic route and mode — until advent of the ubiquitous and cheap gas shale phenomenon — carried with it the maximum economic benefits for the countries, the companies, states and provinces, the taxpayers and the consumers. His readers have appreciated the archive he provided.

Mr. Harbour has argued that North America needs secure Arctic energy from this continent, and that Alaskan and Canadian investors are anxious to provide it. He has warned U.S. and Canadian citizens to be wary of outside investor interest. Harbour especially challenges the motives of hegemonic regimes such as China and Russia. He has said the prosperity of whole new generations could depend on North America’s domestic energy success and that, “Success will depend on stakeholders’ effectiveness in building and maintaining sufficient relationships, cooperation, diplomacy, communication channels and appropriate compromise.”

In recent years, he has become especially hopeful for the future of a new transportation scheme that involves FLNG and movement of treated LNG from the Alaska North Slope directly to Asian markets via the Bering Strait.

He also believed that democracies should not allow the economic rights of the many to be held hostage by the few members of strident, vocal, extremist, special interest groups.  “Due process,” he said, “does not mean ‘do not proceed’.”


While these websites have required day in and day out effort, Mr. Harbour and others have been pleased to contribute their time and resources, knowing that the living history contained in these pages will continue to provide benefits to every sort of gas pipeline researcher for many years to come.  Interested persons are invited to speak with us about modest, public service advertising visibility which does have the unique characteristic of reaching–over time–just about every Northern Gas Pipelines constituency.

NGP has been slow to solicit new public service advertising support since it suspended advertising in early 2003, when Harbour became an Alaska regulatory commissioner and went on to serve the state in various positions with the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners.  Upon retirement in early 2008, Harbour redesigned the webpage in May 2011, using a now outdated “Drupal” format, from the original Microsoft Front Page technology, now ancient.  He is now redesigning it again in a newer “WordPress” format and inviting new sponsors.  Here is an archive reference to the earlier sponsor group.

Updates: Northern Gas Pipelines was born in 2001.  In 2003, our publisher joined the Regulatory Commission of Alaska for the five-year remaining term of a departing commissioner.  In 2008 he created this new webpage, linked to the archives of the old (Search both archives by entering Google search terms in the upper right column).  On October 3, 2011, he once again took leave from the gentle readership to fulfill a public sector assignment.  During that assignment, readers found regular entries of energy news links to maintain the chronology of the archives, but no new editorial commentary.  Having completed the assignment on December 16, the publisher resumed control of the webpage and the posting of editorial comment continued along with reactivation of the email alert system.  We thank readers for patience and support over the last decade.
Disclosures:  The publisher served on the national board of Consumer Energy Alliance (CEA), was a co-founder of CEA-Alaska and its former president.  He is former Chairman of the Alaska Council on Economic Education, the Anchorage Chamber of Commerce, the Anchorage Downtown Partnership and the Hugh O’Brien Youth Foundation-Alaska.  He is a former president of the Alaska Press Club, the American Bald Eagle Foundation and Common Sense for Alaska.  He has served on the boards of directors of the Alaska Support Industry Alliance, Alaska Miners Association, Alaska State Chamber of Commerce, Anchorage Heritage Land Bank Commission, Anchorage Bicentennial Commission, Resource Development Council for Alaska.   He served as Chairman of the Alaska Oil and Gas Association Government Relations Committee, Co-Vice Chairman of the Gas Committee for the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC), and Gas Committee Chairman of the the Western Conference of Public Service Commissioners and Chairman of the Regulatory Commission of Alaska.  He also served as NARUC’s Official Representative to the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission (IOGCC).  The publisher assisted in the creation of Anchorage’s Saturday Market, Anchorage’s Downtown Partnership (BID), Arctic Power and the Alaska Support Industry Alliance.  He is recipient of honorary citations from the Alaska State Legislature and Anchorage Assembly.  He received the president’s signing pen for his national role in obtaining passage of he Alaska Natural Gas Transportation Act of 1976.
-Webmaster

Harbour Accepts Alaska Gasline Development Corporation Position: .pdf

ALASKA GASLINE DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION ANNOUNCES EXTERNAL AFFAIRS DIRECTOR

October 03, 2011
ANCHORAGE, AK., October 3, 2011– Former Chairman of the Regulatory Commission of Alaska (RCA), Dave Harbour, assumed his role this week as Director of External Affairs for the Alaska Gasline Development Corporation (AGDC), a subsidiary of Alaska Housing Finance Corporation (AHFC).  Harbour’s assignment includes keeping legislative leaders informed of project status, along with oversight of media and stakeholder communications.
AGDC president, Dan Fauske, said the appointment followed a recruitment effort involving the consideration of a number of highly qualified candidates.  “Dave’s regulatory background and external affairs management with Atlantic Richfield company and three gas pipeline corporations particularly distinguished his application”, Fauske said.

House Bill 369 (HB369), passed by the 26th Alaska Legislature in April 2010, established the Alaska Gasline Development Corporation (AGDC) as a subsidiary corporation of AHFC to pursue developing a project plan for delivering North Slope natural gas to Interior and Southcentral Alaska.  The Legislature received AGDC’s Project Plan in July 2011. The Plan described how a 737-mile-long, 24-inch-diameter Alaska Stand Alone Gas Pipeline/ASAP project could be feasibly designed, financed, constructed and operated as the legislation directed. The AGDC organization is now working to fulfill continuing legislative requirements to move the project forward.