Alaska gov.'s pipeline bill seen passing: official - Yahoo! News

Alaska gov.'s pipeline bill seen passing: official - Yahoo! News

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Alaska's state legislature will approve a proposal from Governor Sarah Palin to allow competitive bidding for rights to build a long-envisioned Alaska North Slope natural gas pipeline, a top federal pipeline official predicted on Monday.
"Governor Palin is going to get a bill," Drue Pearce, the federal coordinator for the Alaska pipeline project, told Pipeline Opportunities Conference in Houston.
She added that Governor Palin, who is a Republican, would likely call a special session of the legislature if no bill has been approved by the end of the regular session on May 16.
Legislation to kick-start the project has the support of the people of Alaska, state legislators, some federal agencies and the White House, Pearce said.
The pipeline, a mega-project proposed long ago by Alaska officials, would provide a method of delivering the North Slope's proven reserves of about 35 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
The cost of the project, calculated in 2001, was $20 billion.
Plans for the 3,500 mile gas pipeline date back to the early 1970s, before the existing trans-Alaska oil pipeline was built, but the gas project has been stymied for decades by high costs and poor economics.
Palin's plan, which was introduced in March, replaces a failed contract that former Gov. Frank Murkowski proposed with BP Plc, ConocoPhillips and Exxon Mobil Corp.. Some thought the contract was too much of a giveaway to the oil giants and it was rejected by lawmakers and the public.