Alaska denies Exxon Mobil's request for Point Thomson ice road
Published Saturday, November 15, 2008
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Stumble It!ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- The state has rejected a request by Exxon Mobil Corp. to build an ice road in a North Slope natural gas field whose lease ownership is in dispute.
The state has tried to strip Exxon and partners of leases held by Exxon since 1977, saying the area known as Point Thomson was never developed. State officials say the leases formally expired in August.
Irving, Texas-based Exxon has sued the state to reclaim the leases and is trying to move forward with developing Point Thomson.
State officials announced Friday that it is not in the state's best interests to allow Exxon to proceed while the dispute is unresolved.
Point Thomson holds almost one-fourth of the North Slope's 35 trillion cubic feet of known reserves. The area is deemed essential to successful development of a 1,170-mile pipeline project.
Exxon officials say they have not received any notification from the state about the ice road application and will not comment on that. But they add the company has complied to the lease agreements and does not believe the leases have expired.
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Good, Exxon can go find another plot of land to pillage. I'm not sure how they're even allowed to do business in AK anymore.
If a person was looking at a map of the North Slope and was holding their finger over Point Thomson. WHERE WOULD IT BE?
Good for the state. It is about time we began to assert our sovereignty over the oil and gas industry. We have been under their thumb for too long and it is time for the oil and gas industry to do things our way. Exxon had a over 30 years to develop the gas field but they sat on their thumbs. Well, they made their bed, now they cal sleep in in it.
Exxon got what it deserved. It has deliberately sat on that valuable lease since 1977 and used those valuable resources as a land bank.
The lease has hundreds of millions of barrels of oil, and trillions of cubic feet of natural gas- owned by Alaskans. The Palin team gets high marks for not capitulating against the unrelenting pressure Exxon and its dirty surrogates have imposed on the administration.
Do I hear sue baby sue Exxon out of existence. Then the state can have total control over our resources.
mit,
It's about 55 miles east of Prudhoe, I was up there most of this past summer.
I find it highly suspicious that Exxon only took an interest in developing the land lease this close to the expiration date.
Exxon gambled that prices would go up faster than they did, the market demand for natural gas has increased in recent years but Exxon did not develop their claim. The state of Alaska has every right to repossess the land and use it for the state's benefit.
Perhaps Gov. Palin will authorize a state-run well/pump that will run all profits directly into the PFD. Cut out the middle-man?
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