LNG

The US Bureau of Land Management issued an approval for a scaled-back version of a ConocoPhillips $7 billion oil and gas drilling project in Alaska, though also banned future energy activities on huge tracts of land in the state though the Alaska LNG export project is still expected to be given a full go-ahead soon.

Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy has just concluded a trade mission to Japan where he met executives of leading energy companies and utilities as well as government ministries to discuss Japanese companies procuring long-term Alaskan LNG supplies.

Oct 8 (LNGJ) - Alaska Gasline Development Corp. (AGDC), the state-run body and owner of the Alaska LNG project which has been dormant because of the high development costs, has released a consultancy report detailing the environmental benefits achieved by building the export plant utilizing North Slope natural gas to replace high-emissions coal in Asia. “Alaska has some of the world’s strictest environmental laws, and Alaska natural gas should be a key component of any realistic energy roadmap,” said Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy.

   AGDC has all its regulatory permits covering three liquefaction Trains with 20 million tonnes per annum of capacity, two 240,000 cubic metres capacity storage tanks as well as a 807-mile natural gas pipeline from Prudhoe Bay to Nikiski on the Kenai Peninsula. AGDC President Frank Richards said the justification for Alaska LNG was a “compelling” one. “This timely report uses respected and transparent methodologies to quantify the value of replacing high-emissions energy sources in foreign markets with the low-emissions at Alaska LNG,” added Richards.

The Alaska Gasline Development Corp. (AGDC), the owner of the state’s LNG export project, is still filing regular updates to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission at the same time as the State of Alaska has just decided to sue the Biden Administration over federal land restrictions.

A US federal judge in Louisiana, one of the centres with Texas of the LNG industry, has blocked the Biden Administration’s planned suspension of oil and gas leases on public lands and waters in a legal setback for unilateral actions by Biden against the hydrocarbons industry.

Alaska Gasline Development Corp., the state agency overseeing the Alaska LNG project, said it signed an agreement with ExxonMobil Corp. and BP to cooperate on ways to advance the venture by working together to improve the project’s competitiveness and its progress to gain regulatory permits.

Alaska Gasline Development Corp., the state-owned company developing the Alaska LNG project, is expected to sign a final joint development agreement with Chinese companies and banks by the end of the first quarter of 2019.