Fairbanks Natural Gas puts new facility on hold
Plant would liquefy North Slope gas
Published Tuesday, November 25, 2008
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Stumble It!FAIRBANKS — Fairbanks Natural Gas is putting plans to build a natural gas liquefaction facility on the North Slope on hold until the company can analyze how several competing natural gas pipeline proposals could change the big picture.
CEO Dan Britton said plans for the liquid natural gas facility aren’t being shelved completely.
“All of those pipelines potentially affect us in a potentially dramatic way,” Britton said. “We’re trying to understand what’s happening on all that right now.”
The gas lines include a proposed bullet line that Anchorage-based energy company Enstar wants to build between Southcentral and the North Slope, and the Alaska Natural Gas Development Authority’s plan to construct a spur line between Fairbanks and Southcentral that would eventually hook into a major transcontinental line.
In particular, Britton said, state involvement in a gas pipeline could affect the economics.
Fairbanks Natural Gas supplies about 1,100 area customers with natural gas drawn from Cook Inlet, liquefied at a Port McKenzie plant and trucked to the Interior.
The utility has a 14-month natural contract with ConocoPhillips beginning in March, which should keep customers supplied through 2010 — plenty of time, Britton said, to have made a sound decision on long-term plans.
Long-term supply contracts from Cook Inlet are increasingly hard to come by as Enstar struggles to meet demand on peak winter days and producers slow production. The challenge of decreasing supplies prompted FNG to propose plans to tap into the larger North Slope natural gas fields via a contract with ExxonMobil. Under the plan, FNG would have constructed a gas liquification plant on the North Slope, allowing gas to be trucked to Interior customers via the Dalton Highway. The Exxon contract’s start date is flexible, based on completion of the LNG plant, and would last for 10 years. Despite the temporary halt, geotechnical and pre-engineering work on the plant is already complete, Britton said.
But even with construction plans set aside, FNG has re-negotiated its North Slope gas supply contact with Exxon, increasing its purchase from 10 billion cubic feet per year to 17 bcf.
Britton said he doesn’t expect changes in gas prices during the short term.
“The LNG plant on the North Slope still provides for a potentially great benefit to Fairbanks,” Britton said. “We haven’t shelved the project. We’re just evaluating it.”
He expected enough movement in the gas pipeline proposals to reach a decision in four to six months on how FNG should proceed.
Meanwhile, a case before the Regulatory Commission of Alaska is ongoing. Rep. Jay Ramras, a Fairbanks Republican, and 13 Southcentral lawmakers filed a request in May asking the RCA to take another look at regulating the rates FNG charges its customers.
Witnesses for the attorney general’s office, which is representing the public interest, said the utility is actually under-recovering revenue and should not be economically regulated until it secures more of the area’s market share.
Parker J. Nation Jr., a public advocate for the AG’s office, said he expects under-recovery to continue and even increase during the next several years in light of FNG’s planned investment on the North Slope.
“Under-recovery is likely to continue and increase substantially until FNG can significantly increase its customer base,” he testified.
Written testimony by FNG is due in December, with hearings scheduled for February.
Contact staff writer Rena Delbridge at 459-7518.
Community Discussion
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Gee maybe Whitaker can ask Obama for a work project of putting the intra structure in place for the borough in exchange for his three minute support speech. A million dollars a mile to all the homes around Fairbanks to put in gas lines in. If they can spend trillions, why not billions on 90,000 people. Anyone get the picture, natural gas is not going to make it's way to the North Star Borough anytime in the next generation. So much for all those great plans for economic development everyone day dreamed about.
Installing polypipe gaslines in the borough will cost a million dollars a mile????
....maybe if you hire Hollywood to do it.
If I was project manager and hired local labor at $100/hr... a LPG polypipe gasline from Prudhoe to FBX would still cost under $250k/mile.
Alaska has more gas per capita than any other location in the world, and most of it seems to be "rhetorical gas".
In the post-stone-age modern world 95% of gaslines are made of plastic.
http://www.polypipeinc.com/gasdist.asp
==========
http://www.forbes.com/business/2008/11/2...
Alaska fares poorly on our ranking on the basis of numerous factors. Energy costs are 50% higher than the national average. Unemployment has been the second highest in the country at 6.9% over the past five years. The state economy has been growing at an anemic 1.1% a year over the past five years, second worst in the U.S.
How about a natural gas liquification ship? Buy one of those and dock it somewhere at the north slope with some LNG storage tanks on land, and use it to make natural gas, which could be loaded on to trucks (going to Fairbanks and other southern road communities), or LNG transport ships that could offload at various coastal Alaska communities. Your investment is not all stuck in one place, as you could move the ship elsewhere (or sell it) later, such as when the pipelines are built.
How about a solution to create LNG much easier. I found this.
http://www.innovation-america.org/archiv...
Methane
Gas Properties
Molecular Weight
* Molecular weight : 16.043 g/mol
Solid phase
* Melting point : -296.5 °F
* Latent heat of fusion (1,013 bar, at triple point) : 25.22 Btu/lb
Liquid phase
* Liquid density (1.013 bar at boiling point) : 26.383 lb/ft3
* Liquid/gas equivalent (1.013 bar and 15 °C (59 °F)) : 630 vol/vol
* Boiling point (1.013 bar) : -258.8 °F
* Latent heat of vaporization (1.013 bar at boiling point) : 219.26 Btu/lb
Critical point
* Critical temperature : -116.8 °F
* Critical pressure : 666.59344 psi
Gaseous phase
* Gas density (1.013 bar at boiling point) : 0.113 lb/ft3
* Gas density (1.013 bar and 15 °C (59 °F)) : 0.042 lb/ft3
* Compressibility Factor (Z) (1.013 bar and 15 °C (59 °F)) : 0.998
* Specific gravity (air = 1) (1.013 bar and 21 °C (70 °F)) : 0.55
* Specific volume (1.013 bar and 21 °C (70 °F)) : 23.70733 ft3/lb
* Heat capacity at constant pressure (Cp) (1 bar and 25 °C (77 °F)) : 0.534 Btu/(lb.°F)
* Heat capacity at constant volume (Cv) (1 bar and 25 °C (77 °F)) : 0.409 Btu/(lb.°F)
* Ratio of specific heats (Gamma:Cp/Cv) (1 bar and 25 °C (77 °F)) : 1.305454
* Viscosity (1.013 bar and 0 °C (32 °F)) : 0.0000069 lb/(ft.s)
* Thermal conductivity (1.013 bar and 0 °C (32 °F)) : 0.0189 Btu.ft/(h.ft2.°F)
Miscellaneous
* Solubility in water (1.013 bar and 2 °C (35.6 °F)) : 0.054 vol/vol
* Autoignition temperature : 1103 °F
============================================================
ethane C2H6
Gas Properties
Molecular Weight
* Molecular weight : 30.069 g/mol
Solid phase
* Melting point : -298 °F
* Latent heat of fusion (1,013 bar, at triple point) : 40.83 Btu/lb
Liquid phase
* Liquid density (1.013 bar at boiling point) : 34.116 lb/ft3
* Liquid/gas equivalent (1.013 bar and 15 °C (59 °F)) : 432 vol/vol
* Boiling point (1.013 bar) : -127.7 °F
* Latent heat of vaporization (1.013 bar at boiling point) : 210.12 Btu/lb
* Vapor pressure (at 21 °C or 70 °F) : 555.49456 psi
Critical point
* Critical temperature : 90 °F
* Critical pressure : 708.34985 psi
Gaseous phase
* Gas density (1.013 bar at boiling point) : 0.128 lb/ft3
* Gas density (1.013 bar and 15 °C (59 °F)) : 0.08 lb/ft3
* Compressibility Factor (Z) (1.013 bar and 15 °C (59 °F)) : 0.9912
* Specific gravity (air = 1) (1.013 bar and 15 °C (59 °F)) : 1.047
* Specific volume (1.013 bar and 21 °C (70 °F)) : 12.79875 ft3/lb
* Heat capacity at constant pressure (Cp) (1 bar and 25 °C (77 °F)) : 0.421 Btu/(lb.°F)
* Heat capacity at constant volume (Cv) (1 bar and 25 °C (77 °F)) : 0.353 Btu/(lb.°F)
* Ratio of specific heats (Gamma:Cp/Cv) (1 bar and 25 °C (77 °F)) : 1.193258
* Viscosity (1.013 bar and 0 °C (32 °F)) : 0.0000057 lb/(ft.s)
* Thermal conductivity (1.013 bar and 0 °C (32 °F)) : 0.0104 Btu.ft/(h.ft2.°F)
Miscellaneous
* Solubility in water (1.013 bar and 20 °C (68 °F)) : 0.052 vol/vol
* Autoignition temperature : 959 °F
==========================================================
propane
Gas Properties
Molecular Weight
* Molecular weight : 44.096 g/mol
Solid phase
* Melting point : -305.9 °F
* Latent heat of fusion (1,013 bar, at triple point) : 40.83 Btu/lb
Liquid phase
* Liquid density (1.013 bar at boiling point) : 36.333 lb/ft3
* Liquid/gas equivalent (1.013 bar and 15 °C (59 °F)) : 311 vol/vol
* Boiling point (1.013 bar) : -43.7 °F
* Latent heat of vaporization (1.013 bar at boiling point) : 182.85 Btu/lb
* Vapor pressure (at 21 °C or 70 °F) : 126.18283 psi
Critical point
* Critical temperature : 206 °F
* Critical pressure : 616.4104 psi
Gaseous phase
* Gas density (1.013 bar at boiling point) : 0.151 lb/ft3
* Gas density (1.013 bar and 15 °C (59 °F)) : 0.119 lb/ft3
* Compressibility Factor (Z) (1.013 bar and 15 °C (59 °F)) : 1.0193
* Specific gravity (air = 1) (1.013 bar and 21 °C (70 °F)) : 1.55
* Specific volume (1.013 bar and 21 °C (70 °F)) : 8.698026 ft3/lb
* Heat capacity at constant pressure (Cp) (1 bar and 25 °C (77 °F)) : 0.406 Btu/(lb.°F)
* Heat capacity at constant volume (Cv) (1 bar and 25 °C (77 °F)) : 0.358 Btu/(lb.°F)
* Ratio of specific heats (Gamma:Cp/Cv) (1 bar and 25 °C (77 °F)) : 1.134441
* Thermal conductivity (1.013 bar and 0 °C (32 °F)) : 0.0087 Btu.ft/(h.ft2.°F)
Miscellaneous
* Solubility in water (1.013 bar and 20 °C (68 °F)) : 0.039 vol/vol
* Autoignition temperature : 878 °F
==============================================================
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