May 3 Deadline: Please Give Your OCS Opinion, here, After Reading This NARUC Report

Alaska Standard by Dan Dickinson (NGP Photo).  Is a gas pipeline economic? First if investors think that commodity prices in the future won’t cover the tariff – and at today’s prices and estimated tariffs they certainly won’t – there will be no gas line.  Moreover, if investors suspect that the State has no other new sources of revenue they will be equally reluctant to invest in a gas line. Unknown future taxes on a potential gasline can be as troubling as low forecasted natural gas prices in making a project uneconomic.  A “contract” or legislative offer of fiscal stability which fixes taxes for some period have proven to be hard sells in this state politically. And even if we could all come to an agreement, it may not be enough. In 2008, as energy prices climbed Dr. David Wood noted ….

Homer Tribune by Naomi Klouda.  A long-awaited, often-touted natural gas pipeline from Anchor Point to Homer may finally come to fruition thanks to the Alaska Legislature’s recent passing of $4.8 million in appropriated funding for the plan.  The project has to first survive Gov. Sean Parnell’s veto pen.  Rep. Paul Seaton estimates it to be the biggest economic stimulus project for the lower Kenai Peninsula, which also includes a pressure-reducing station at Anchor Point. Once built, Enstar would be able to sell natural gas to Homer and Anchor Point consumers.

Calgary Herald by Dina O’Meara. …  The new millennium proved to be the perfect timing for a change — in leadership and direction — both provided by Hal Kvisle, who after almost a decade at the helm, is retiring in June.  Appointed chief executive in 2001, two years after being recruited from Fletcher Challenge Energy, Kvisle oversaw TransCanada’s successful transition into a diversified pipeline and power producing company. …  Q: When you speak about things you wanted to see accomplished before handing over the reins, you mentioned Keystone, Bruce Power and Alaska. But you didn’t mention the Mackenzie pipeline project, which would bring Arctic natural gas down through the Northwest Territories into Alberta. Why is that?

A: Mackenzie is in a period right now where we’re just kind of waiting. We want to see….
 
Commentary by
Dave Harbour
Sierra Club Canada offers a comment page on the Mackenzie project here.  The group is urging a ‘greening’ of the Mackenzie project by burdening it with requirements.  I used that page to express the opinion below–as I hope you will–ending with a note of appreciation to the environmental group for not deleting a message which is contrary to their own position.
 
To: Jim Prentice and the National Energy Board:
 
PLEASE DON’T implement all of the recommendations directed to the NEB and the federal government identified by the Joint Review Panel for the Mackenzie Gas Project.   Further delay is unnecessary, increases energy prices and inhibits the building of sustainable jobs in the Mackenzie corridor.
 
NEB Members are highly intelligent, observant regulators concerned with the public interest, not with SPECIAL INTERESTS.   You have sufficient information upon which to base an expedited process for pipeline construction.
 
Aboriginal and corporate pipeline applicants have done a thorough job planning for this buried, refrigerated pipeline. Further delay could thwart the public interest by sending a signal that no large project in the North can ever again survive the death by a thousand cuts imposed on any such pioneering effort by a gauntlet of strident opponents. 
 
The project is important to all of the citizens of North America, which is why I offer this humble opinion from Alaska.
 
Signed,


Dave Harbour
 
P.S. It is a sign of the intellectual honesty of Sierra Club Canada that it did not delete this message.