Americas News
$65 Billion Price Tag for LNG Project
A liquefied natural gas project including a 800-mile pipeline through Alaska could cost more than $65 billion, the Associated Press reports.
Sean Parnell, governor of the US state, released a letter from representatives of Exxon Mobil Production Co., ConocoPhillips Alaska, BP Exploration Alaska, and TransCanada Corp., in which they said good progress on the North Slope project has been made but there are more obstacles ahead.
"Significant environmental, regulatory, engineering and commercial work remains to reach upcoming decisions to bring North Slope gas to market," the company officials wrote.
The project could involve up to 1.7 million tonnes of steel and employ as many as 15,000 people at the peak of the construction, plus 1,000 permanent workers.
Parnell has been pushing since the start of the year for the gas pipeline to move forward.
In January, BP, ConocoPhillips, and ExxonMobil said the best way of marketing gas from Alaska's North Slope is liquefying it at a facility in southern Alaska, rather than using an all-land pipeline into Alberta, Canada, according to the Alaska Journal of Commerce.
Last month, a US federal office issued a report explaining how natural gas producers would navigate federal regulations in pursuing a North Slope project, either for LNG export to Asia or for the North American markets.
The energy companies have not yet committed to moving forward with the project, and timelines are still rough.
Engineering, procurement, and construction could take five to six years, and the companies have been pushing for "competitive and stable fiscal terms" when it comes to taxes before moving forward.
