During the first week of August, I attended a gas symposium in Anchorage presented by the Legislature’s oil and gas policy consultant, PFC Energy. The symposium was organized by Senator Anna Fairclough, Chair of the Legislative Budget and Audit Committee. The purpose of the five day conference was to inform legislators on issues regarding marketing Alaska’s natural gas. The presentations included: global gas markets; shale gas; potential markets for Alaskan LNG (liquefied natural gas); gas strategies and portfolios of key companies; the economics and commercial structure of gas pipelines and LNG projects; and LNG shipping. I thought the information presented was very valuable for the policy makers who were present. I congratulate Senator Fairclough on a successful symposium. One of the takeaways I came home with is the fact that our window of opportunity to market Alaska’s gas in the Pacific Rim is open today but it won’t stay open for long. Russia is aggressively getting in the game, Australia is already a major player and Canada is rushing to get its gas to the coast. As a state, we need to consolidate behind one project and in my opinion, that’s the large volume LNG export project. In order to do this, the Legislature needs to come up with stable fiscal terms for gas that are fair to the industry and the citizens of the state. I look forward to working with my colleagues in the Legislature to accomplish this task.
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