June 07, 2019 [Alaska Journal of Commerce] – BP and ExxonMobil are contributing $10 million apiece to help get the $43 billion Alaska LNG Project get its federal construction authorization, Lt. Gov. Kevin Meyer said Thursday.
Meyer made the announcement at the Alaska Oil and Gas Association’s annual conference in Anchorage.
The state-owned Alaska Gasline Development Corp. estimates it will take roughly $30 million to complete the environmental impact statement the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is currently drafting.
FERC is scheduled to release a draft version of the Alaska LNG Project EIS in June; the agency pushed back from February earlier this year. AGDC officials said at a May 22 board meeting they expect the draft document to be roughly 4,000 pages.
The major producers signed a memorandum of understanding with AGDC in March to provide technical assistance on the project. They also signed separate confidential gas sales precedent agreements with AGDC last year that outline the terms — including price — under which they would sell gas from the Prudhoe Bay and Point Thomson North Slope fields into the project.
The state capital budget that passed the Senate in early May authorizes AGDC to accept up to $25 million from outside sources to support the Alaska LNG Project.
AGDC officials expect to have approximately $22 million remaining for the project at the end of the 2019 fiscal year, which is June 30.
Gov. Mike Dunleavy has stressed a desire to bring the producers back into the project after they stepped away in 2016 amid poor oil and gas market conditions.
The state has since focused on advancing the regulatory and marketing aspects of the project.
“All future decisions on Alaska LNG will be rooted in world-class LNG experience,” Meyer said.
The companies are also currently assisting AGDC in reevaluating the overall economics of the project and its $43 billion cost estimate amid new global LNG market conditions.
BP Alaska Vice President of Commercial Ventures Damian Bilbao said in an interview that the company continues to be excited about monetizing Alaska natural gas because the company’s share of North Slope reserves are still its “single largest undeveloped resource on the planet.”
On the $43 billion estimated cost of the project — a figure calculated in 2016 that includes $9 billion in contingencies — Bilbao said he believes there are avenues in supply procurement and other areas to bring the cost down.
Alaska LNG officials have always cited the cost of the 800-mile gas pipeline from the North Slope to the Kenai Peninsula as the main cost obstacle to developing the long-sought project.
“Four years is a long time in this industry; it’s a technology-driven industry so our experts feel very confident that the number that was delivered at the end of (the preliminary design period), that $43-$44 billion — they can really look at some opportunities to bring that into the high 30s and we’re going to look at some opportunities to take that down even further,” he said.
As for North Slope oil, Assistant Secretary of the Interior Joe Balash, a former Alaska Department of Natural Resources commissioner, said during remarks at the conference that a draft environmental impact statement should be published by the end of summer for ConocoPhillips’ large Willow prospect in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, with a final EIS coming in 2020. ConocoPhillips estimates Willow, with a cost of $4 billion to $6 billion, could produce more than 100,000 barrels of oil per day.
Balash also said the Bureau of Land Management, which he oversees, just completed consultation with Canadian officials over the potential impacts to the Porcupine caribou herd from possible oil and gas activity in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge; the herd migrates across the border. A final EIS analyzing industry development in the ANWR coastal plain should be ready in August and a lease sale will follow towards the end of the year, according to Balash.
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