Mid September Blues

I had some high hopes for the Valdez LNG Summit (LINK) held this past week, but a summit with no buyers and no sellers isn't much of a summit.  I also hoped that the summit would correspond with Governor Parnell's Third Quarter 2012 milestone:

Third Quarter 2012: Two State-funded groups working on parallel projects must complete discussions to examine consolidation prospects. The groups are the North Slope producers and TC-Alaska (MOU parties) and the Alaska Gasline Development Corporation (AGDC).

There's two weeks to go to make this milestone, so remain patient.

So where are the buyer and the sellers? In a word: Canada. Spectra Energy and BG Group are hatching a plan to build a 500 mile pipeline to Prince Rupert for LNG export (LINK).  The stated capacity is 4.4 BCFD at a cost of $8 Billion.  Compared to the $20 Billion Alaska Gas Pipeline to Alaskan Tidewater the Spectra/BG pipeline is less expensive and it moves more gas.  Possible construction start date : 2015.

British Columbia Premier Christy Clark thinks Apache will win the race to export BC LNG. She may be right.  It's a sure bet that BC LNG will beat new Alaskan LNG to Asian markets.  Premier Clark said “We are moving at lightning speed to try to enable this,” she said. “We need to be in the exports market sooner rather than later to lock up those contracts.”

Wow! Great quote, I wish Sean Parnell had said that.