They get it, we don’t - TransCanada and Denali Spar In Calgary

Canadian Press by Lauren Krugel.  An official working on Alaska's proposed US$30-billion Denali pipeline says there are benefits to moving the project ahead without the help from the state government, which its competitors have secured. ... "No proponent has an exclusive right to build pipelines in the United States or Canada," Bob Bleaney, general manager of Denali Canada, told the Canadian Institute's Arctic Gas Symposium on Tuesday.   ...  "Denali is proceeding outside of AGIA. We think that actually is a benefit for our project because we're not tied to those particular conditions and we think we have a better opportunity to bring forward a successful project without them," he said.   ...  "We believe the best and most effective way to bring the project forward is in the alignment of five key parties: the state of Alaska, the three major North Slope producers and TransCanada," said Tony Palmer, TransCanada's vice-president of Alaska development (NGP Photo, 2-26-10, with longtime Alaska consultant, Patty Bielawski).  

Calgary Herald by Shaun Polczer.  The two main Alaska pipeline proponents on Tuesday continued to trade barbs over who will build the world's largest private construction project.  At an Arctic natural gas conference in Calgary, representatives from TransCanada Corp. and the Denali pipeline consortium took subtle jabs against each others' respective proposals at the Canadian Institutesponsored event.

Anchorage Daily Planet.  "They Get It; We Don't".   As throughput in the trans-Alaska oil pipeline continues to decline, the state of North Dakota is booming from a surge in oil production from the Bakken shale formation - producing 80 million barrels of oil last year.  Using horizontal drilling techniques to extract oil from the Bakken formation, North Dakota has leapt ahead of Oklahoma and Louisiana to become the fourth-largest oil producing state in the country. If current projections hold, North Dakota’s oil production could pass Alaska’s by the end of the decade, the Wall Street Journal reports.  As the national economic downturn has begun to affect Alaska and unemployment has steadily risen, North Dakota’s unemployment rate is 4.3 percent. North Dakota has kept oil taxes low and exploration has boomed even though recovery costs are considerably higher for the oil trapped in the state’s shale formation.  Looking at North Dakota’s example, it is clear that increased oil production spurs economic development and creates more job, yet our state legislators have stuck their proverbial heads in the sand, keeping oil taxes high and killing oil exploration. For 2010, ConocoPhillips will not be drilling an exploratory well in Alaska for the first time in 45 years.  Alaska lawmakers must reconsider the state’s entire oil tax structure, which was ratcheted up in 2007 by then-Gov. Sarah Palin’s Alaska’s Clear and Equitable Share oil tax, if they want the state to be competitive against other oil provinces.