News-Miner Editorial
If AGIA fails ...
Gov. Palin will be the one who can unite Alaskans, Big Oil
Published Sunday, April 6, 2008
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Stumble It!A leader who has lots of political capital but doesn’t use it isn’t doing his or her constituents much good.
With that in mind, Alaskans should want Gov. Sarah Palin to consider using her considerable store of political authority to embrace ConocoPhillips, BP and Exxon Mobil if her own path for getting the North Slope natural gas pipeline project reaches a dead end, as a significant number of people think it soon will. To be clear, a sizable number of people have faith in the governor’s Alaska Gasline Inducement Act and the single proposal — TransCanada’s — it has produced for consideration.
But if legislators reject TransCanada’s proposal — assuming the governor forwards the proposal to them for consideration under AGIA — Alaska will find itself looking for a new way to move ahead with a pipeline project that by nearly all accounts is needed as the underpinning of Alaska’s economic future.
The problem has been a very basic one: The Palin administration has chosen a course that seeks to use economic and shareholder pressure to force ConocoPhillips, BP and Exxon Mobil to put the gas they have under lease from the state into a pipeline built by a third party. That approach seems less likely to work as the weeks slide by. The companies would prefer to own the pipeline rather than ship gas in someone else’s line. And their executives have repeatedly said that the companies need, before undertaking such a monumental project, a level of fiscal assurance that Gov. Palin has been unwilling to give.
We’ve said time and again that we want Gov. Palin to succeed with AGIA. But we also have our eye on the calendar, which lists the months and years that continue to pass without work commencing. Meanwhile, other sources of energy line up to supply the nation. AGIA could very soon prove to have been a bust. When and if that occurs, the governor, her gas line team and her supporters in the Legislature will need to pivot quickly to Plan B: the direct involvement of ConocoPhillips, BP and Exxon Mobil in a pipeline partnership to advance the project.
Many, of course, believe that Plan B should have been Plan A all along. Finger-pointing will do no one any good if AGIA comes up empty, however. Enough time will already have been lost, and we can’t lose more by arguing over the past.
Eyes must be focused forward.
To that end, only the governor, with her storehouse of public support, can convince distrustful Alaskans that working hand-in-hand with the Big Three oil companies is the only remaining choice for getting the gas pipeline under way in the timeframe that Alaska needs.
Alaskans should hope Gov. Palin can put her personal attachment to AGIA aside, shelve her adversarial approach to the oil industry and welcome ConocoPhillips, BP and Exxon Mobil executives into her office as partners if AGIA runs its course without delivering a pipeline.
The state will, without question, need her to do just that.
Community Discussion
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You say (state) "the time frame Alaska needs".
I disagree with both that and whatever dance is occurring in the Gov's office at this point in time.
The inevitable hark is economic development, progress, more people to develop the territory, ad nauseum, ad infinitum.
Listen up Buster, and listen up good, we sure as hell don't need this place overrun like 30 years ago in the TAPS years.
Everyone who came to Alaska with that notion (we'll all get rich!) in mind should just be encouraged to turn around and let us freeze in the dark, just as we once admonished the Texans and Okie's in the 70's.
It is however once again, perfect timing, recessional times and high energy prices down south, "They're Building A Pipeline In Alaska" let's go!
That of course will satisfy long and short-term speculators but will have the inevitable consequences of hyper-inflation, spiraling crime rates, further pressures on finite fish and game resources.
Having grown up in Alaska in the 1950's the best I can do is chip away at the notion that prosperity has all the answers, whereas in my little brain, adversity has sufficient merit.
As if a pipeline boom will make life good for all.
Generally it's a call to maintain if not expand government services when a lack of revenue prelude that notion.
However, Editor, back to your first point, political capital unexpended, is where this Administration has left the common folk not addressed, indeed the Governor's office has not taken rural Alaska's energy crisis seriously while claiming AGIA will solve all.
Wrong, wrong, and wrong again.
She chose previously comfortable advisors to facilitate governmental functions, not those who have had to exercise bodily functions at -40F outdoors.
I do hope people remind this Governor she still has the opportunity to boot the people who made life easy in the first years of her tenure, but ultimately proved to have been an impediment to both Alaska and her own legacy.
Governor Palin has forged a political identity as the Anti-Big Oil candidate. It got her elected – Once. If AGIA fails, the Anti-Big Oil game won’t work a second time.
When the dust settles it sounds like Producers want fiscal certainty (a commitment by the state for gas tax rates) and the State wants a pipeline construction commitment.
Eyes on the Prize.
http://alaska-gas-pipeline.blogspot.com/...
I realize that it is politics but for a state to be forced to guarantee a profit return off an investment to a company that makes billions a month in profit is ridiculous
Hey Guys, if you got Gas, Gold, and Girls...who needs money?
Hey Girls, if you got Gas, Gold, and Guys...who needs money?
Hey Families, if you got Gas, Gold, and good health...who needs money?
Big-Oil and Big-government are and always have been partners in failure.
Just stand far enough back and look at it with a calm and silent mind.
Why do we clamor with such madness for some phony PRIZE..?
The entire system of BigBiz and BigGov is self-handicapped with structural inefficiencies caused by greed.
Of all the energy in BTU's available buried in the dirt of Alaska only a tiny tiny tiny itsy-bitsy bit actually ends up doing productive work after Humans get done with messing with it.
The whole process is a waste.
The whole process is inefficient.
BigBiz loves Big-Architecture.. it physically dominates and monopolizes the landscape and society.
This is a key element to the choices of Architectural Style that had dominated Alaska.
The big Palaces of Pipes in Prudhoe look impressive, but are economically inefficient because of many layers of compounding complexity.
I call it Fort Prudhoe.. the hidden military theme of architecture makes it look out of place, like a big gnarly soldier wearing a wedding-dress.
The Trance-Canada big-steal pipeline is a piece of architecture originally dreamed of before Hardings Teapot Dome Scandal.
Today wackanoodle internationalist-globalist-"new world odor" coke-snorting nutballs with nukes want this megaproject to help consolidate the "North American Union" and the new "amero" currency they are about to foist upon you after pump&dump in the backside of the economy has created a $10trillion DEBT-debacle.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?c...
This big-steal pipeline isn't just a thing for passing some extra methane the Alaskans have lying around off to market...
..it ties in with Shock&Awe mega-mega corporruption of hyperaccellerated Full Spectrum Dominance much bigger and nastier than a Microsoft-Google-Yahoo midnight merger.
http://www.schillerinstitute.org/conf-ic...
This big-battleship-pipeline is a key part of keeping WorldWar4 going for another hundred years.
I'm not a Luddite or anarchist who thinks we should repeal the 21stCentury and head back to the 12thCentury..
[I'll leave that up to the current administration]
The point I'm trying to make here is..
If Geo Wackanoodle Bu$h can tell the world in front of TV cameras that "America is addicted to oil", then Alaska is being treated like Colombia and Afghanistan.
Wanna fix your energy problem???
...fix your mental health problem first.
$1 per gallon LPG for Yukon-Koyukuk....forever....(;-P)
It's 2million feet from pump-4 to Fairbanks.
3" dia gasline designed to ship LPG could be installed before freezeup-2008.
Total installed cost $20million.
Rate of amortization: 100% in 6months @ $1/gal LPG.
Imagine a 200psi 3"LPG-gasline filling a railcar at 100gallons per minute.
And a 2nd 3"gasline to Homer will be even cheaper,easier,quicker..
The 3rd and 4th will be really fun, and 5th and 6th will be passing gas to Juneau before the end of 2009.
FLEXIBLE POLYETHYLENE GASLINE -- LPG PIPE
NOMINAL PIPE SIZE -- 3”
Maximum Working Pressure is 255PSI
PART NUMBER -- G6065
NOMINAL O. D. -- 3.500”
WALL THICKNESS -- 0.479”
NOMINAL WEIGHT PER FT -- 2.00#
COIL LENGTH -- 500’
MAX FT PER TRUCK -- 12,000’
LIST PRICE PER 100’ -- $343.62
If we passed the fur-hat around Fairbanks we can quickly come up with enough dough to buy a machine that makes 3" LPG-gasline.
http://www.alibaba.com/trade/search?Type...
....with a machine like this we could be making our own gaslines/waterlines/sewerlines/geothermlines/mininglines for CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP !!!
Made from Alaskan NGL's, By Alaskans, For Alaskans
NORTH STAR GAS....BIG DIPPER PIPE MFG. LLC
The nice thing about little plastic-gaslines it they don't require roads to build them, and they disappear into the wilderness nicely, but they put gas where you need it...
where it's cold while panning for gold on your claim.
......now, I challenge anybody to tell me why this plastic gasline project won't work..
..try me.
...flash/rumble
Once again the News-Miner editorial board has displayed both its ignorance and contempt for Alaskans. The icing on the cake are the outright falsehoods in your editorial.
You falsely claim that the only remaining choice is to work hand in hand with the multinational corporations- some of which are your biggest advertisers.
Once again you need to be reminded that Alaska voters have repeatedly voted to build the All Alaska Gasline from the North Slope to Valdez. We have the money with our new tax structure (One you argued against- that would have cost Alaska billions) to pay for the project.
While Governor Palin is defending Alaska's Constitution you smear her with: "...shelve her adversarial approach to the oil industry..." That is exactly the kind of propaganda that came from convicted felon, Bill Allen's, VECO Times.
Disgusting.
AGIA has worked very well in a number of important ways. We now know that the gasline project has serious international interest- some of which you have yet to report on.
We also know the cost of the project, and we also know that the project will be very profitable.
This is critical information that Governor Palin's open and competitive process has brought Alaska.
The News-miner would prefer to go back behind closed doors and 'negotiate'.
How sad. The dismal failure of Murkowski's secret negotiatiations with the multinationals should have been educational for you.
Unanswered in your "lets get on our knees and beg", approach, is the fact that the multinationals do not want to open the North Slope gas basin yet. Opening that basin will reduce the value of the gas in other already developed basins. The multinationals know that restricting supply will ensure higher gas prices and higher profits.
Why you continue to ignore that central point is extremely disappointing.
Sarah Palin is taking that stance that all Alaska representatives should have in regards to oil companies. They work for US and we need to treat them that way. When trillion of potential dollars are on the table you can not trust anything that BP or Conoco says. Sarah Palin and the DNR gasline team have put more energy into AGIA than all of the previous administrations combined. Whatever the results of AGIA are I will trust that it will be in the best interest of the State.
50/50 and Fairbanksgas, you both have said it well. DNM, on this issue, you guys miss the boat consistantly!! We are tired of giving all of Alaska's resources to multi-national companies that are making profits off of it that astound all. They care NOTHING about average Alaskans, and they work for US. I personally prefer the All Alaska Pipeline solution that gets us gas to ALASKA FIRST, but will defer to Gov. Palin and her administration. You make it sound like we have to accept big oil's solution immediately, that we are wasting time, burning daylight...we have WAITED OVER 30 YEARS!!! I really appreciate comments from Fairbanksgas and 50/50 on this issue, they speak the truth as best as I can tell.
every newspaper across the country has its own political alliances, ours is no different. Remember, there is a mother ship in texas making the calls to our paper.
Is that where the outfit that bought our paper is based? Can't remember anymore...
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