TC Alaska Open Season Deadline Approaches - Enbridge's Northern Gateway Pipeline Challenge - Semco and Warren Buffet's MidAmerican Energy Plan Alaska Gas Storage Project

Juneau Empire by Pat Forgey.  This Friday, no news may be good news for Alaska's decade-long hopes for getting the state a way to finally get its huge natural gas reserves to markets where it can be sold.  Calgary-based TransCanada Corp., which is developing a pipeline in conjunction with the state under the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act, will conclude Friday its first "open season," during which it solicits bids from customers of the estimated $40 billion pipeline.

Province by Monty Bassett.  Dubbed the Northern Gateway, the pipeline proposed by Enbridge Inc. would bring tarsands oil from Alberta to the coastal town of Kitimat and then ship it via supertankers to refineries in Asia.  The street banner doesn't tell the whole story. The main problem is not the pipeline per se, although many now have strong concerns about pipeline safety. Rather it is supertankers running through the narrow labyrinth of islands and fjords between Haida Gwaii and the mainland.  If Enbridge's plan goes through, supertankers will travel right by Gil Island, where B.C. Ferries' Queen of the North sank in 2006.  To win the hearts and minds of Canadians and push the pipeline through, Enbridge received $100 million from a group of 10 secret investors ( "Alberta producers" and "Asian refineries" is all the company will say). And suddenly the north and the nation is being bombarded with full-page ads in all of the major and minor media.

ADN.  Two companies that want to store Cook Inlet natural gas production so it can be used by consumers during the winter said Wednesday they have applied for a state certificate for the project. Semco Energy Inc. and MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co. have formed a joint venture named Cook Inlet Natural Gas Storage Alaska to complete the enterprise. The joint venture applied with the Regulatory Commission of Alaska to own and operate an underground natural gas storage system, they said.