Alaska Gas Pipeline License Signed

Natural Resources Commissioner Tom Irwin and Revenue Commissioner Patrick Galvin signed the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act in Fairbanks yesterday (LINK).

The ceremony was attended by Hal Kvisle, president and chief executive officer of TransCanada - The same man who earlier this year said no body is happy until Exxon is happy. These days Exxon is not happy - not happy with Natural Resources Commissioner Tom Irwin who recently shut down Exxon's efforts to start drilling at Point Thomson.

You'll need your breakup boots to wade through the non-sense these politicians are dishing out. Gavin got one point right:

"Much work remains, and we will keep working with all project stakeholders to make the natural gas pipeline a reality"

Issuance of the AGIA license is a milestone in the sense that the saga can move on to the next stage, but the actual pipeline will not move forward until all the players are on the same team.

Related - APRN Libby Casey interviews Federal Pipeline Coordinator Drue Pearce - Audio Link (APRN).

Fairbanks News-Miner coverage of the AGIA license signing (LINK), and the op-ed piece (LINK) , and quote:

BP, Conoco Phillips and ExxonMobil — own the gas. They have consistently stated that they cannot work within the terms outlined in the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act and reflected in the agreement with TransCanada.

Alaska doesn’t have years in which to allow this to unfold. It is imperative that the administration and the producers reach an agreement. Since AGIA does not allow the administration to negotiate with the producers outside the process that has led to the TransCanada agreement, the state’s options are limited. We hope those limits do not doom the agreement to failure or years of delay.