Walking the Line

Yesterday, the Anchorage Daily News published, Bill Walker's Op-ed. Bill Walker is counsel to the Alaska Gasline Port Authority.

He spoke of Governor Murkowski's final strategy in making sure that the Canadian highway route was the only route for the gasline.

One argument Walker made, was the argument on the receiving terminals. He spoke of the Sempra LNG terminal and its expansion.

What walker failed to mention is that Gazprom has entered the market and they will dominate that market he speaks about.

The headlines......................................................................

Gazprom jumps US LNG queue with Sempra

http://www.offshore247.com/news/article.asp?Id=3124

A Memorandum of Understanding signed late Monday by Sempra’s chief executive and Gazprom’s chairman outlines how Russian LNG would be imported into U.S. terminals still being developed. Sempra commodities would then market Gazprom’s wares.

Statoil, last week, outlined potential LNG partner-sites that included those coming together in North America.

Meanwhile, the Gazrom deal is a pact between the world’s largest gas company and one its biggest LNG marketers.

Sempra’s Costa Azul terminal in Baja, California, will be operational in 2008; the Cameron LNG terminal is clear to flow in 2008. A third LNG site, Port Arthur LNG in Texas, is being scrutinized by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

Gazprom will start natural-gas exports to the United States this year.

“(Because) Sempra … do not intend to enter the production business outside the United States, they make an ideal partner for us,” Miller said in a statement.

Walker failed to mention this. The only viable solution is the Canadian route with a Y line at Delta Junction and a 24 inch spur-line to Anchorage and connecting it to the Kenai facilities.

Walker blames the Governor for Sempra's 2005 withdrawl of financial backing of AGPA. His comments are misleading. April of 2005 is when Sempra signed the letter with Gazprom.