Samuels: Special session will be complicated
Published Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Rep. Ralph Samuels, R-Anchorage, said Monday in Fairbanks that an upcoming special legislative session won’t be simple — the Alaska Legislature will contend with a number of variables as it decides whether to issue the TransCanada pipeline company a state construction license for a cross-continental natural gas pipeline.
Samuels, the House majority leader and a lawmaker recognized as knowledgeable on oil and gas issues, said the biggest question in Juneau lies with whether a pipeline — if one is built, an assumption he said is “not a foregone conclusion” — should be owned by major oil companies with petroleum leases in Alaska or a third-party like TransCanada. He also suggested while he’s heard analysts call the level of oil and gas exploration on the North Slope “embarrassingly” low, the lack of a near-term prospect for transporting gas through a pipeline has left explorers with little incentive to search for gas.
“The economy of Alaska needs the gas pipeline,” Samuels told board directors for the Greater Fairbanks Chamber of Commerce. “But if we get it, everything changes.”
Samuels indicated lawmakers could discuss a number of variables in the upcoming summer session, including how to direct money promised as incentives to the recipient of a state pipeline permit. He also fielded a question about whether he thought oil companies might simply be hoping to feed natural gas to south-central Canada to help produce oil at the prospective Alberta tar sands site. He responded by saying such a motive, if true, may raise eyebrows in Congress but has yet to draw discussion from state lawmakers and is somewhat irrelevant to the state's interests.
Contact staff writer Christopher Eshleman at 459-7582.
Community Discussion
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Somehow I get the impression that it will be more complicated than it should be with folks like Samuals involved.
What is complicated is -- LNG ICEBREAKING TANKERS ... DIRECT from the coast through Hudson Bay to Chicago.
...Tech is advancing so fast they're LESS than half the cost ...
PLUS: the cost at any point along the Coast is about the same, meaning we do NOT have to use the Prudhoe Gas first, as Pipes do -- forced by the MEGA-cost of pipe extensions FROM Prudhoe, yet Eventually you MUST reach other Gas needed to finish out the life of the Pipeline. Remember, the Oil Pipe overran its cost near 3 times in 1978 AND all of that was in the Northmost third, the part IN _PERMAFROST_ . ALL of the Extensions would be 100% in PERMAFROST.
In Numbers: First, Tankers cost $15 Billion, but a Pipe pays $30 Billion, PLUS $10 Billion extensions, PLUS $100+ Billion in OIL LOSSES -- from taking the Gas that Pressurizes the Prudhoe oil (part of this is that most assume all Oil is unreachable from 2025, when the Oil Pipe reaches its minimum -- but actually Tankers will just take over, tripling the Oil lost from the Alaska Dept. of Revenue's estimate of 300 million barrels. Remember in a Court Case, any Judge must take Alaska's own estimate as THE MINIMUM ).
... then, lower-cost all-tanker foreign Competition drives the Pipe BANKRUPT.
... then, paying the $100+Billion, drives ALASKA BANKRUPT.
After draining the Permanent Fund, each Alaskan would be assessed $90,000, if it is done the same as when Municipalities go BANKRUPT.
And that's without TRIPLE DAMAGES !
This federal administration needs to time out and be changed before we go forward one more step. That this business of a major gas line departing from the Transalaska Pipeline corridor to go through Canada
does not serve our long term interests. Anyway the BP and Conoco have full page ads in the Cordova,
Bethel, and other small city papers proclaiming they have started the pipeline without the state. Not only that they have according to those ads have started hiring. The official start date they gave was back in
April so we are wasting our time talking about it- they have so much power they decided to just do it their way. True story.
You want a real shock of difference go to another oil state and check out the huge investment going on
there.
DistantThunder where are you?!!
If all that you say is for real,
I Move; (any seconds?)
That you get your butt down there at the session and blog us the truth!
I second. We need an All Alaska Gas Pipeline which we voted on and passed. We will suck out all the gas and leave nothing for us just like we are doing with our oil.
Why do we export everything before we make sure we have enough for ourselves? Why do we export everything before we add value to it and give those jobs away to other countries?
Does not make sense.
The COMPLICATION is that the Alaska Legislature is meeting in Juneau for the Special Session. It might be about time that ALASKANS rise up and inform our Public Servants that they are employees that are bound by the Constitution of the State of Alaska. They have no greater obligation than to the Citizens of Alaska. And that this resource is owned by ALL ALASKANS who shall share equally in its benefit.
ALASKA GAS FOR ALASKA FIRST.
Samuels is a tool for the large multinational oil corporations.
Building a pipeline is not hard. We begin with the voter mandates- North Slope to Valdez, and order the pipe. When the pipe shows up, we dig a trench, weld the pipe, and drop the pipe in.
Ohh- and how do we pay for the Alaska owned pipeline? We pay for it with the billions in surplus we have rolling in.
2008 is an election year. Those who get in the way of the All Alaska Gasline will be replaced.
Tick tock.
And as far as the tar sands go- a big environmental emergency in Canada last week as 500 ducks got oiled up and killed after they landed in massive lake of gooey oil at a syncrude facility.
Yeah, it took a whistleblower to alert authorities...
And how about that Alaska press? Such a great job covering this story. While our Canadian neighbors to the East had front page stories on this- not a peep from the News-Miner or ADN.
On the Conoco Phillips website under news releases you will find that on 4-8-08 they officially announced the partnership of BP and Conoco in building what they have named "Denali" the Alaska
Gas Pipeline. They have begun hiring and have a firm working project scope in place on out through
Canada. The war is over folks. We sat on our hands too long. Eat it and smile.
sosorry
Are you for real? The "Denali" plan is a joke, its a bluff, and ironically it will be a write-off that will reduce payments to the State of Alaska.
Hopefully legislators will ignore "Denali", and decide on either TransCanada or the All Alaska option. Of course they won't because clowns like Samuals are in the legislation for the sole purpose of helping Big Oil.
I would like to see the State of Alaska/FEDs sue Conoco/BP for use decimation of a national treasure by using the name Denali.
Hey BigMike,
Don't you remember Conoco Phillips declared themselves "Alaska's Oil and Gas Company" two years ago?
C'mon get with the program.
Step up and get in line.
CP has the same shame quotient as the Clintons.
We are on the same page BigMike. I am doing some potstirring. Unfortunately the real problem is at the top of the heap. George W. Bush The Transalaska Pipeline could have never happened without the feds
help. Holding oil companies accountable for their actions has never been easy. In a state like ours where the politics have been murky waters for so long it is even harder. One thing Frank did that I was proud of was putting a stop to the outrageous royalty break the Alpine field has been getting since it started producing. That big spoiled child ConocoPhillips has been slapping our bottoms ever since. I felt like throwing up when I read that news release and their "Denali" project. Obama will be sold out to the Midwest interests that brought this whole boondoggle about in the first place. McCain is already in the pocket of the Bush owners.
Thanks Everybody!!!
I thank you all for your recognition that my ideas about plastic gaslines could work for solving a lot of problems.
I think it's best to keep the "smart gasline network" out of the hands of "state control" until the the state gets a divorce, and dumps it's common-law marriage with BigOil because they've been "livin' in sin" all shacked-up with each other for too many years.
"Juneau"( OliveOyl) moved into a house built by Popeye(LABOR), but the financing of the house was underwritten by Bluto(BigOil&Banks&etc.)
Bluto sabotages the mortgage and steals the house with OliveOyl still in it..
......so the rest of the never ending cartoon series has Popeye tussling with Bluto while trying to move OliveOyl out of the house he could never own. In some episodes Popeye and OliveOyl elope to his tugboat, but Bluto calls out the Navy to sink Popeye's Tugboat.
A big part of the problem is OliveOyl is a little-cuckoo and a bit of a sl*t who always spreads her love too thin, and this always undercuts Popeye's efforts to do the right thing.
So, what would really make the poor-Nigerians, and poor-Iraqi's, and poor-Siberians.. worldwide sit up and take notice is if we built our own pipeline totally without using currency of any kind.. do it all with barter...
[heck, BigOil barters with its corporate partners all the time]
What does my suppliers of machinery and supplies like?
Well, they're just like everybody else..
smoked fish & squawcandy
game meat and furs
arts and crafts
spa treatments at your B&B
5 gallon buckets of heavy-cons out of your sluice
trade cabins&land
...otherwise just about everything you might see in craigslist.
Maybe I should post an ad in craigslist--->
"Wanted: A good working plastic-pipe extrusion machine"
"Wanted: A small modular skid mounted ethylene tower"
"Wanted: 12,000 cases of Spinach"
...do ya thimk ?? ...(;-P)
....crash/fumble
Assembly Members,
I've received many questions asking why the State does not consider selling royalty oil for less than market value. I've brought this to the interior representatives and they told me that the current legal definition of maximum benefit of the resources is maximum dollars into the State treasury. As heating oil passes the $4 a gallon mark there are more and more people questioning the logic of this.
Do you think that there would be any legal grounds for a lawsuit against the State to redefine the maximum benefit to include in-state use of the resources by the citizens? While the borough considers declaring a state of emergency they might also consider filing a lawsuit against the State of Alaska royalty oil policy on behalf of the borough residents. The current “Maximum use of the resources” has resulted in out of control State spending and left half of Alaska’s population struggling to heat their homes. At the very least this kind of measure would bring statewide attention to the issue and get people talking about changing the way the State distributes oil wealth. Please consider bringing this item up for discussion at Thursdays borough assembly meeting.
Alaska Constitution Article 8 - Natural Resources
§ 1. Statement of Policy
It is the policy of the State to encourage the settlement of its land and the development of its resources by making them available for maximum use consistent with the public interest.
§ 2. General Authority
The legislature shall provide for the utilization, development, and conservation of all natural resources belonging to the State, including land and waters, for the maximum benefit of its people.
Letter to the editor about this:
http://newsminer.com/news/2008/apr/12/su......
If you agree with this in any way send an email to assembly@co.fairbanks.ak.us today.
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