LNG market grows, uncertainties persist

Discussion at London liquefied natural gas conference driven by US shale gas production, Japanese tsunami’s affect on nuclear power

By Bill White

Researcher/writer for the Office of the Federal Coordinator
Driving much of the discussion at a liquefied natural gas conference in London were two relatively recent events that have rattled how the global LNG industry views its short-term future.
The events help explain the unusual LNG pricing trends of late, underscore some of the volatile dynamics of supply and demand, and amplify the uncertainty forecasters have of their own predictions.

The first event was the rise of U.S. shale-gas production over the past five years, sweeping aside the world’s biggest gas market — North America — as an LNG customer. Companies mistakenly targeted billions of dollars for construction of new gas liquefaction capacity and U.S. import terminals. The lack of U.S. customers cast adrift that new LNG production, which needed to find a new destination and did so in Europe, helping soften short-term and spot LNG prices there. The continued rise of Lower 48 shale-gas production also has engrossed the LNG industry in a guessing game: Will the United States export some of its new-found gas bounty as LNG?
Event two: A tsunami stifling nuclear power production at Japan’s Fukushima plant last March. This boosted short-term LNG demand in Japan, raising prices there and diverting to Asia spot shipments that had been aimed at Europe.

Two currents at congress

Shale gas and Japan were two currents flowing through presentations at the LNG Global Congress held in London during the last week of September. I was invited to present on Alaska natural gas and to learn the latest developments in an industry undergoing rapid change.
A key message from the conference is that the spectacular expansion of LNG supply and demand worldwide should continue over the next decade, although LNG traders, analysts and consultants offered no consensus on the exact timing and details of that growth.

The LNG conference covered a breadth of other topics, from the rise of Qatar and Australia as gas liquefiers, to China’s energy appetite, the prospect of U.S. LNG exports, whether North America’s shale-gas revolution will be replicated elsewhere, and how a wider Panama Canal and a new technology called floating LNG might be game changers for the industry.

Optimism about LNG

Conference attendees gushed optimism about the LNG industry, while mumbling uncertainty about how exactly the future will unfold.
Alaska helped pioneer the world of LNG exports when the Nikiski liquefaction plant opened in 1969 to supply Japanese utilities with natural gas from the new Cook Inlet discoveries. Alaska since has been eclipsed as an exporter by Indonesia, Malaysia, Egypt, Trinidad & Tobago and, more recently, by such countries as Qatar, Yemen, Russia and Norway.
People attending the conference were generally aware that Alaska is about to exit the game, with the last LNG shipment expected to leave the Nikiski plant this fall.

Why Alaska would drop out just as Japanese demand is spiking did puzzle them, however. They didn’t understand that the historic Cook Inlet fields are petering out. I explained that some Alaskans hope the state can re-enter the fray within a decade by exporting North Slope gas from a resuscitated Nikiski plant or a new mega-plant at Valdez, if a proposed pipeline from the Slope gets built.
Here’s a snapshot of themes discussed at the conference.
Supply and demand

The LNG market has been defined for decades by long-term contracts between LNG makers and buyers of the gas. LNG makers needed these 20-year-plus deals to underwrite the huge upfront cost of building plants to liquefy gas — superchilling it to minus 260 degrees Fahrenheit transforms methane into a liquid that is more compact and economical to transport via special tankers.

But thanks to their rapid expansion in recent years, the world’s LNG exporters now have far more capacity to liquefy natural gas than is needed to fulfill current demand. This imbalance has given rise to short-term contracts and spot sales, which last year comprised about 20 percent of the LNG volume traded. That’s roughly akin to the percentage of oil under short-term and spot deals, said Kasper Walet, principal with Amsterdam-based energy consultant Maycroft. But he noted that these spot and short-term deals, while 20 percent of the LNG trade, comprised just 2 percent of all natural gas movement. Most speakers said they expect long-term deals to continue to characterize the industry.

Japan needed 110 billion cubic feet of additional LNG this year after Fukushima, and it got about 48 billion of it on the spot market, buying from Algeria, Egypt, Yemen and Nigeria, said Frederic Deybach, an LNG executive with European energy conglomerate GDF Suez.
The imbalance will end soon, as demand catches up with the capacity to supply LNG. When? The presenters’ estimates ranged from 2012 to 2015.
Key unknowns

Here are key unknowns that make this future so hard to predict:
Will low coal prices tilt China and other emerging Asian economies away from natural gas for future fuel supplies?
Will Japan and Germany phase out nuclear power and need more natural gas (as well as coal and oil) to make electricity, and if so, how quickly will the phase-outs occur? Will the world economy double-dip into another recession, or even triple-dip?
Will geopolitical events disrupt LNG supply, as they did this year in Libya, a gas exporter, and could do in unstable Yemen, another LNG exporter?
After 2015, start-up of new liquefaction plants — particularly in Australia but also in Papua New Guinea, possibly Canada and other locations — probably will ease any worries about LNG supply shortages for several years.
But timing is everything. If capacity comes on slow and demand rises fast, expect to see LNG prices rise, several speakers said. Prices could fall if liquefaction capacity gets built faster than demand rises.

Andre Mernier of Belgium sees a bright future in Asia for LNG because of its geology and geography. Geology — not enough of its own gas reserves and generally too distant for gas deliveries through pipelines. Geography — lots of need for electrical generation fuels in coastal population centers, where deliveries can be made easily. Mernier is secretary general of the Energy Charter Secretariat, a group with 53 member countries that upholds international laws to ensure the smooth flow of energy between exporters and importers.
Deybach of GDF Suez, said much of the expected new demand for LNG imports to 2020 will come from nations “where demand uncertainty is greatest.” These importers include developing nations in Asia, the Middle East and Latin America.
Ship charter rates soar

The LNG fleet has expanded rapidly in recent years, from 195 ships at the end of 2005to 360 ships at the end of last year, according to the International Gas Union.
That expansion hasn’t been fast enough, said Walet of consultancy Maycroft. Most tankers are sailing under entrenched contracts. The few available for short-term hire are demanding premium rates.
The rate for chartering an LNG tanker last year averaged $41,000 a day. That price jumped to $80,000 in the first half of this year, particularly after Japan’s Fukushima disaster boosted that nation’s short-term need for gas, Walet said. Claire Wright, principal gas analyst with Lloyd’s List Intelligence, said some spot-shipment rates have reached $100,000 a day.
Chris Meyer, a European LNG consultant with Poten & Partners, said shipyards are busy building tankers, and that day rates will fall within 18 to 24 months, after the new boats get launched. About 60 new ships have been ordered, Wright said.

Hot commodity

Worldwide demand for natural gas last year rebounded from the drop in demand caused by the 2008-2009 global recession. Overall demand leaped 7.4 percent, with LNG demand up 21 percent, said Hideomi Ito, natural gas analyst for the International Energy Agency. (LNG tends to be a niche product desired by places like Japan, South Korea and Taiwan that lack the option of pipeline deliveries. As was mentioned, less than 10 percent of the world’s gas consumption involved LNG last year.)
Growth in gas demand should slow over the next five years to perhaps 2.4 percent a year, Ito said, with LNG demand growing faster than that because it would help fuel hotter economies such as China and India.
Christof Ruehl, chief economist for BP, said European demand for LNG might even fall next year although he expects it to grow over time.

China’s big appetite

Natural gas comprises 4 percent of China’s energy needs now, Ruehl said. Coal provides 70 percent. China consumes less than one-tenth the amount of gas that Europe uses.
But China is just getting going as a natural gas consumer, Ruehl said. By 2030, China will consume far more energy than today, and natural gas will supply 9 percent of it. Within 20 years, China will consume as much natural gas as all of Europe consumes now, he predicted.

China will get about half of its gas in 2030 from domestic production, particularly tapping shale and other unconventional reservoirs, and it will import the other half via pipelines and LNG tankers, Ruehl said.
Ito noted that China has been investing furiously to secure new supplies. These investments include developing conventional, shale and coal-bed methane resources within China; securing long-term LNG-supply contracts with Australia, Qatar and Papua New Guinea; opening of an almost 4 billion cubic feet a day pipeline from Turkmenistan in late 2009 (expected to reach full capacity next year); and building a 1.1 bcf a day pipeline from Myanmar that should start in 2013.
Ito said China’s total gas demand could rise from about 10 bcf a day on average last year to 25 bcf a day in 2015, with LNG sating some of that growth.

Australia — boom towns, boom nation

Australia is the Wild West of LNG — a brawny frontier toward which the industry’s future is migrating.
Alan Copeland of the Australia Bureau of Resources and Energy Economics said his nation exported about 19 million metric tons (2.5 bcf a day on average) of LNG last year from two plants. That’s about the same LNG volume Alaska would export from Valdez if that idea ever catches on.

But that volume is dwarfed by what’s planned for Australia: Seven projects totaling 57.1 million metric tons (7.5 bcf a day) at some stage of development (a combined price tag of $144 billion), plus another six totaling 44.4 million metric tons (5.8 bcf a day) proposed but not under way.
The seven projects are supposed to be done by 2016. Can Australia really pull that off? Copeland called it “a huge challenge, an enormous task,” but noted the companies involved are sticking to their start dates. Others at the conference said start-up delays are all but certain.
Still, nearly everyone expects Australia will become the world’s No. 1 LNG exporter by 2020. Last year it was No. 4, behind Qatar, Indonesia and Malaysia. Qatar exported 56 million metric tons of LNG, the equivalent of 7.4 bcf a day on average.

Australia is developing gas fields relatively close to its East Coast population center. These include coal-bed methane fields that some local farmers oppose, Copeland said. But the giant plays are in remote areas, including in deep water far off the nation’s northwest coast. Australia, through a Shell project called Prelude, is pioneering the emerging technology called “floating LNG,” where liquefaction occurs at sea rather than piping the offshore gas to an onshore LNG plant.
The rapid build-out of Australian LNG is straining the country. An LNG development called Wheatstone plans to bring 3,500 workers to a town of 800 people — raising issues of where to house them, how to feed them and what they will do for fun. Some projects have adopted a work schedule familiar to those who labor at Alaska’s North Slope oil fields: one or two weeks of 12-hour days followed by extended time off.
With coal and iron ore developments occurring as well in Australia, engineers and equipment are in short supply, Copeland said. A big winner is the average laborer, who is pulling in wages of $225,000 to $300,000 a year on remote LNG projects, Copeland said. The audience gasped when Copeland mentioned this.

U.S. LNG exports

Several speakers said U.S. exports of LNG are inevitable. The United States will have the supply, due to fast expanding shale-gas production. And if the big gap between gas prices in North America and those in Asia linger, liquefying U.S. gas production could be very profitable.
Deybach of GDG Suez noted that a race is afoot within the Lower 48 by companies positioning themselves to make and export LNG. One or two of them will win. Possibly three.
Simon Bonini, a consultant and former LNG director for Centrica, a British utility, said that of course the United States will export LNG. “I’m a firm believer that if you can have a stampede into Queensland (one of Australia’s gas hotbeds), you can have anything.”

Leslie Palti-Guzman, a New York-based analyst with political-risk consultant Eurasia Group, said at least six serious LNG export proposals are in play in the United States and Canada. If they all came together they could export 70 million metric tons of LNG, or 9 bcf a day. That’s twice the volume TransCanada and ExxonMobil hope to flow into the Lower 48 from Alaska’s North Slope. Asian utilities or governments are involved directly or indirectly in the push for North American LNG, Palti-Guzman said.
“In practice only half of that amount at best will be expected to be exported but that is still a significant volume,” she said.
U.S. projects that are finished by 2016 could “hit a window of opportunity” if Australian projects fall behind schedule and LNG demand grows as some expect, Palti-Guzman said.
She noted the opposition to exports from the U.S. petrochemical industry, which uses natural gas as a feedstock and wants a supply glut to hold down prices. But, she added, “U.S. LNG export is definitely going to happen.” The exports would reduce the nation’s trade deficit, providing political reason to allow gas to leave the country, she said.

The current price gap between North American gas and Asian LNG is about $12 per million Btu. U.S. gas can be liquefied and shipped from the Gulf Coast to Asia for about half that price, Palti-Guzman said. The economics are even better for LNG from British Columbia — as long as the price gap holds, a risky assumption, she said.
Lower 48 natural gas prices could rise by $2 to $2.50 per mmBtu if the nation starts exporting significant volume, she predicted.
Some analysts believe U.S. LNG exports, and the resulting price rise, would heighten the Lower 48’s need for North Slope gas from Alaska.

Panama Canal

Palti-Guzman said expansion of the Panama Canal will help U.S. LNG exports to Asia.
LNG tankers traversing the Panama Canal can sail from the U.S. Gulf Coast to Asia in 22 days, shorter than a trip around South America or Africa, she said. Proposed LNG projects in British Columbia would hold a travel advantage, however: an eight-and-a-half-day trip to East Asia, she said.
Right now, only 6 percent of the LNG fleet of under 400 ships can squeeze through the canal, and none of them try, said energy consultant Walet.

But when the Panama Canal expansion is done, scheduled for 2014, 80 percent of the fleet will fit through the canal.
“It should be a real game changer,” Walet said.
The canal will transform how LNG flows around the world. In particular, diverting a cargo load in the Atlantic over to Asia will become more cost effective.
Shale gas globally?

Can the U.S. shale-gas revolution be duplicated elsewhere in the world?
Not easily, several speakers noted.
The United States is the perfect setting for shale gas. The country has lots of independent producers and service companies. A skilled labor force exists. Regulators generally understand gas production. Technology such as hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling are easily disseminated and improved on. The pipeline network to move production to market is vast.

China is estimated to have even greater shale-gas resources than the United States, but it falls short of the U.S. on know-how, competitiveness and market structures, said Madjid Kubler, owner of energy analyst Team Consult. Germany falls far short of China, he said, particularly on competitiveness and the regulatory/social environment for accepting unconventional gas development.
Will floating LNG sink or swim?
A new idea that many are watching to see how fast and how well it catches on is called floating LNG.

Shell is the first mover with this technology, approving a FLNG vessel to be built in South Korea and deployed to the company’s $10 billion Prelude development far offshore Northwest Australia. Shell estimates the field will start up in 2016, with 3.6 million metric tons of annual output (processing about 500 million cubic feet a day of natural gas).
A company called Flex LNG is involved in a smaller proposal off Papua New Guinea — an onshore field with offshore liquefaction, unlike Prelude where the entire operation will be offshore. Other projects are envisioned, including a couple more off Australia’s coast.
The attractions: FLNG fields could be developed more quickly for less cost, with no long-distance pipelines, fewer environmental challenges and less bureaucratic red tape ... if the concept proves itself.

The actual cost of building and operating FLNG units is unproven. This is causing some in the financial industry to wait and see, some speakers said.
But Wouter Pastoor, business development vice president with Flex LNG, said the technology is custom-made for small and medium-scale LNG production — 2 million metric tons a year (260 million cubic feet a day) in production or less, a bit more than the peak output from the ConocoPhillips/Marathon plant at Nikiski that is closing. This will let smaller countries and smaller fields get into the LNG business, and smaller volumes are easier to market, he said.
However, he noted that FLNG is “a novel idea whose risk profile is being defined.”

Energy Fact of the Week: Trains and Gains

Energy Fact of the Week: Trains and Gains

Even Cuba Understands What's to Gain from Off-Shore Drilling

By DANIEL KISH


One year ago, the Obama administration ended it's blanket offshore drilling ban. But it replaced its drilling moratorium with a permitorium. The bureaucrats said they were allowing drilling, but they granted very few permits and it took months to issue a permit for new drilling.
While the Obama administration is not keen on producing energy domestically, the Cubans of all countries are going to use the technology developed by American companies in the Gulf of Mexico to access their energy resources less than 100 miles from the coast of Florida. When Cuba recognizes an economic opportunity that the administration does not, we should pay attention.
[See a collection of political cartoons on energy policy.]
Even though one year has passed since the end of the moratorium, the administration is still issuing a reduced number of permits. Before the moratorium, the administration was issuing 72 permits per month and now, a full year after the moratorium supposedly ended, they are only issuing 52 permits per month.
Not only has the rate of issuing permits slowed, but the paperwork required to satisfy the administration's bureaucrats has increased exponentially. Before the moratorium, the average permit application was 30-40 pages long. Now a permit application is 3,600 pages long. This dramatic increase in bureaucratic paperwork will create some jobs—but only jobs for more lawyers and more bureaucrats. Creating more work for attorneys and bureaucrats does not help the economy grow.
The administration's byzantine permitting requirements have lead to drilling rigs leaving U.S. waters for countries that welcome energy production. Nearly 40 percent of the deepwater rigs that were in the Gulf of Mexico before the moratorium have left. These rigs could have drilled an additional 60 wells, created 11,500 jobs and generated $6.3 billion in private sector spending. Instead of realizing these positives, the Obama administration is exporting those jobs to other countries.
[Read: How Much Oil Is There?]
The economic benefits of energy production are clear. If Congress permanently lifts the moratoria on energy exploration and production in the Outer Continental Shelf, access to these vast resources would generate:
• $8 trillion in additional economic output (GDP);
• $2.2 trillion in total tax receipts;
• 1.2 million new, well-paying jobs annually across the country; and
• $70 billion in additional wages each year.
But while the Obama administration does not seem to grasp the benefits of job creation and economic growth created by energy production, the Cubans apparently do. According to NPR, geologists estimate there may be 5 billion to 20 billion barrels of oil off the coast of Cuba (between Cuba and Florida). In the past, these resources have been out of reach, but because of the deepwater drilling technologies developed by U.S. workers in the Gulf of Mexico, Cuba will be able to access these resources for the first time. A drill rig is en route from China to Cuba and could start drilling as early as November.
It's not too often that you can say that we should look to Cuba for taking advantage of an economic opportunity, but when it comes to creating jobs and lowering the cost of energy through energy production, we should pay attention. Thousands of hard working Americans are out of work in the Gulf states because the administration isn't following Cuba's example. Now is the time to get these people back to work creating energy.

Proud to be part of the industry

By Chris John

Last month, the Joint Investigation Team of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement and the U.S. Coast Guard released their final report analyzing the Macondo incident that occurred in 2010.
Within the detailed and thorough report, there were recommendations made on how best to upgrade and enhance the regulatory structure and industrial prowess for offshore drilling at the BOEMRE. In reading these, I was struck by the similarities in the suggestions made in the report and the overhauls already enacted at the BOEMRE and the additional, voluntary requirements industry has adopted.
Throughout what I still consider to be an unnecessary six-month moratorium, the oil and gas industry remained committed to the highest levels of safety by voluntarily creating and designing the Marine Well Containment Company. This is part of an effort to improve prevention, well-intervention and spill response. When it became evident that the permit process needed drastic improvement, the industry and state government officials worked with the BOEMRE to improve the efficiency of the permit review process. While we are still not happy with the pace of things by any stretch of the matter, they are getting marginally better.
Despite this slowdown, the industry is getting back to work.

For example, just last month, Chevron announced a major discovery in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico on a well it began drilling in early 2010. Also last month, BP submitted its first deepwater exploration plan since Deepwater Horizon. Its 212-page plan includes a number of measures that go above and beyond current BOEMRE requirements. This indicates BP’s confidence in its lessons learned from its detailed analysis of what led to the Macondo incident. BP’s pledge and singular focus to doing the job safely are guiding it through the next steps as it returns to the Gulf of Mexico.

Week after week, more and more companies are getting back to work in the Gulf of Mexico, and this commitment to the region underscores its importance to this country’s energy mix. I am proud to be part of an industry that is answering the call in a responsible and safe way, all while continuing to provide good, high-paying jobs that fuel Americas’ energy security.



http://www.dailycomet.com/article/20111013/LETTERS/111019824?p=1&tc=pg

Alaska leaders make the case for ANWR — again

Congressional hearing focuses on coastal plain as a source of jobs, energy and revenue; critic calls it ‘kowtowing’ to industry


It’s long been the case that Alaska’s top elected officials, regardless of party, have supported opening the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas development. ANWR
The state’s current crop of leaders again demonstrated that stance during a Sept. 21 congressional hearing that one witness panned as “political theater.”
The House Natural Resources Committee and its Republican chairman, Rep. Doc Hastings of Washington state, convened the hearing to discuss ANWR in the context of jobs, national energy supply and reducing the deficit with leasing and royalty revenue.
The witness list was stacked with supporters of opening the coastal plain to drillers. They included Alaska’s three-member congressional delegation, Gov. Sean Parnell, a prominent resident from a village along the ANWR coast, and a truck driver who hauls freight to the North Slope oil fields.
They said opening the coastal plain could sustain or create scores of jobs and work economic wonders for the state and nation.
Murkowski ‘insulted’
Alaska’s senators, Democrat Mark Begich and Republican Lisa Murkowski, each expressed support for opening the coastal plain.
“With gasoline prices averaging $3.65 in the lower 48 states and unemployment around 9 percent, Alaska is here to help,” said Begich, according to the text of his testimony. “We can offer relief to consumers at the pump, provide well-paying jobs in Alaska and the Lower 48 and help reduce our $14 trillion deficit.”
Murkowski focused on the Obama administration’s consideration of designating practically all of the refuge — including the potentially oil-rich coastal plain — as wilderness. Such a move, which would take the consent of Congress, would pretty much foreclose the possibility of drilling.
“I find it to be both misguided and, as an Alaskan, somewhat insulting when federal agencies continue to look for ways to lock up additional wilderness in Alaska when Alaska doesn’t want it and when the law says, plainly, ‘no more,’” Murkowski’s written testimony said.
She was referring to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service effort write a new “comprehensive conservation plan” for ANWR. Murkowski argues the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act of 1980 prohibits agencies from undertaking studies for new wilderness areas without congressional authorization.
“When an agency’s response to our Nation’s current debt and jobs crisis is to seek more ways to twist the law just to keep money buried in the ground, our priorities have spun out of the realm of rationality,” said Murkowski’s written testimony.
Young, governor weigh in
Alaska’s lone congressman, Republican Don Young, also cited the high price of gasoline in his testimony. It’s because domestic oil production hasn’t kept pace with demand, he said.
He gave a nod to those who fear oil and gas activity would compromise what has been described as ANWR’s pristine character.
“Let’s be honest and say that there will be some consequences to exploring and producing in ANWR,” said Young’s written testimony. “But let’s also be honest and say that if we import the oil it will arrive in the U.S. in foreign ships that sometimes are not up to our standards. And our environmental safeguards for oil production are much more stringent than theirs are. So if you are really concerned about the environment you should prefer oil to be produced here rather than somewhere else in the world. Just a few short weeks ago news broke of a deal that will partner Exxon and Russia to drill in the Arctic. Do we really trust that Russia can protect the Arctic better than we can?”
Gov. Parnell, a Republican, spoke to the committee via video conference.
“Look at the states doing relatively well in this economic downturn — they are America’s major energy producers,” he said. “And Alaska is one of those states. Yet we are held back from contributing more affordable energy to other Americans by federal regulators who want to keep federal lands off-limits to oil and gas exploration.”
Parnell told the committee the viability of the trans-Alaska pipeline is threatened by declining oil production. His goal is to boost throughput to 1 million barrels a day, well above the current level of around 600,000 barrels.
With modern technology, the governor said, the oil industry’s “footprint” could cover less than 2,000 acres of the refuge, which is nearly the size of South Carolina.
“For most of the year, the coastal plain is frozen. It has low biological activity,” Parnell said. “Experience shows that seasonal restrictions and other environmental stipulations can be used to protect caribou during their six-week calving season each summer. Appropriate restrictions can also protect migratory birds and fish. Our experience with other North Slope fields shows it can be done.”
A villager and a trucker
The U.S. Geological Survey, in a 2005 paper, estimated the coastal plain’s undiscovered, technically recoverable crude oil at 5.7 billion to 16 billion barrels, with a mean of 10.4 billion.
Fenton Rexford, a member of the Kaktovik City Council and a candidate for mayor of the North Slope Borough, told the committee that people in his village support responsible development on the coastal plain.
“I am a life-long resident of Kaktovik and I intend to grow old there,” his written testimony said. “I can compare what life in Kaktovik was like prior to oil development on the North Slope to the quality of life we have today because of my personal experience.”
He said ANWR development means a continuation of modern life for villagers: running water and flush toilets, a local school, police and fire services.
The Inupiat villagers wouldn’t favor development, Rexford said, unless they were confident development wouldn’t hurt their subsistence way of life.
The committee also heard from Carey Hall, a truck driver for Carlile Transportation Systems. He said he works on the “ice roads” hauling freight to and from the North Slope.
Finding new oil in places such as ANWR is crucial, he said.
“The oil and gas industry represents the cornerstone of our business,” he said. “It is not only important to contractors and vendors such as trucking companies but to all our citizens in the state of Alaska and as a nation. It produces jobs, lots of jobs, and we need jobs.”
The critics
Two witnesses invited by the committee minority had a markedly different view on using ANWR as a tool for creating jobs and fighting the national debt.
Gene Karpinski, president of the nonprofit League of Conservation Voters, said he is fighting for permanent protection of the coastal plain. He characterized the hearing as “nothing more than political theater.”
“Drilling in the Arctic Refuge is and always will be a political hot potato that has been voted on 20 times in the past 30 years, in the House of Representatives alone,” said the written text of Karpinski’s testimony. “Over and over again, pro-drilling members of Congress have trotted out our nation’s last great wilderness place as a panacea for everything from the budget deficit and high unemployment to providing heat for the poor, relief to hurricane ravaged states, support for our troops and health benefits to coal workers.
“Through it all, every attempt to drill the Arctic Refuge has ultimately failed because of the continued strong support of the American people who see this never-ending political spectacle for what it is — a kowtow to the wealthiest corporations in the world, the only ones who will actually benefit from opening the Arctic Refuge to drilling.”
David Jenkins, of Republicans for Environmental Protection, questioned the idea of the industry disturbing only 2,000 acres. Citing the USGS, he said any oil is likely to be scattered in small pockets across the entire plain.
“Oil development would necessitate a massive spider web of pipelines throughout the area,” he testified.
Rosy job projections on ANWR’s unproven oil reserves are overblown, and even a major oil find would be unlikely to significantly improve the nation’s energy security or reduce gasoline prices, Jenkins said.

Point Thomson: Field fight over?

Field fight over?

Alaska, Exxon have ‘resolution in principle’ on Point Thomson, Sullivan says

For Petroleum News


A top Alaska official signaled strongly Aug. 15 that the six-year fight for control of the Point Thomson oil and gas field might soon be over.

Dan Sullivan, commissioner of the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, told a legislative committee the state and ExxonMobil, the Point Thomson unit operator, have reached “resolution in principle” on terms to settle the legal conflict.

“We believe that this is a resolution that advances the state’s interests,” Sullivan told the Senate Resources Committee, meeting in Anchorage. “ExxonMobil now is discussing the provisions of the settlement with other working interest owners of the unit, who are also the other litigants in the current lawsuit.”

Terms of the settlement remain confidential, Sullivan said.

He noted the matter is more involved than simply the state and ExxonMobil reaching a deal, as the Point Thomson WIOs also are working out “internal commercial terms between themselves.”

Sullivan’s remarks are the most significant sign yet that the struggle over the rich but undeveloped field is coming to a close, heading off what easily could be years more litigation between DNR and the major Point Thomson stakeholders. Besides ExxonMobil the major players include BP, Chevron and ConocoPhillips.

Alaska economic development boosters are anxious to see the legal cloud lifted from Point Thomson, as it contains roughly a quarter of the North Slope’s 35 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Many believe that all the gas, including the Point Thomson reserves, are needed to make a North Slope gas pipeline a viable project.

A settlement also conjures intriguing possibilities for how the field’s considerable endowment of oil and other hydrocarbon liquids might be exploited. Full-blown development of these resources could generate a boomlet of industry activity on the Slope.



Private briefing offered

DNR began taking firm steps to break up the Point Thomson unit and reclaim the state-owned acreage in 2005, during the administration of Gov. Frank Murkowski.
The state’s beef is the lack of any production to date from Point Thomson, despite its discovery decades ago in the late 1970s.

The field is located along the Beaufort Sea coast next to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

The oil companies went to court to block the state’s effort to break up the unit, and today the case rests before the Alaska Supreme Court.

In recent weeks, DNR and the oil companies have filed heavy legal briefs, suggesting that no out-of-court settlement was near.

Yet the two sides have been negotiating for a year or more, with Gov. Sean Parnell and ExxonMobil executives stating publicly they wanted to settle the dispute.

Sullivan offered to brief legislators on the settlement terms “in a confidential setting.”

“Thank you, commissioner, I think that we would probably seek to take advantage of that offer because I think ... it is a material step forward,” replied Sen. Joe Paskvan, a Fairbanks Democrat and committee co-chairman.

Sen. Hollis French, D-Anchorage, asked Sullivan whether it was “fair to say that the state and Exxon are through negotiating and that negotiations that are taking place now are between Exxon and its partners. In other words, we made sort of our last best offer.”

Sullivan: “I think it’s fair to say.”

During the court proceedings, some friction emerged among the Point Thomson working interest owners, with Chevron, BP and ConocoPhillips complaining that they had been shut out of the negotiations between the state and ExxonMobil.



Deal timing unclear

ExxonMobil was measured in its response to Sullivan’s remarks. The company provided this statement via e-mail to Petroleum News and other media outlets:
“We’re aware of the State’s testimony on August 15, 2011 at the legislative committee hearings. We remain committed to working with Governor Parnell’s administration and the other working interest owners to finalize a settlement.

“Settling Point Thomson litigation and securing necessary local, state and federal permits is imperative to maintain the pace of Point Thomson development.”

The question naturally came up at the legislative hearing as to when a settlement could be finalized.

“When would you anticipate that the deal would be official and could be made public?” Paskvan asked Sullivan. “What’s the timeline on that — is that 90 days, 45 days?”

Sullivan replied: “You know, Mr. Chairman, I really don’t know. Our interest would be soon. In some ways those discussions right now are ... the timeline of those, we’re not necessarily driving that anymore.”

The other committee co-chairman, Republican Sen. Tom Wagoner of Kenai, said he’s been involved with the issue of Point Thomson development through three administrations, and he congratulated Sullivan on getting this far.

“I know it’s been a real battle that started with the Murkowski administration and went right on through,” Wagoner said. “Well, it’s very, very essential to the completion of the large pipeline.”

“Sen. Wagoner, we’re not, it’s not over yet,” Sullivan said. “As you know, anytime you work on settling litigation it’s never easy. You never get fully everything you want.”



What sort of development?

Sullivan noted that, while Point Thomson gas is considered important for a North Slope gas pipeline, the field also is rich in petroleum liquids, and production of those liquids could help stem the oil throughput decline on TAPS, the trans-Alaska pipeline system.
While construction of a gas line appears far from imminent, with no project yet confirmed, ExxonMobil itself created an incentive for wrapping up a Point Thomson deal as quickly as possible.

The company has pledged to begin production of 10,000 barrels a day of natural gas condensate, a liquid hydrocarbon, from Point Thomson by year-end 2014.

Already, the company has drilled two wells at Point Thomson, having obtained special permission from DNR in 2009 to sink the holes on two of the unit’s 31 leases. ExxonMobil and its partners proceeded with the drilling as part of a strategy to hang onto the field, which is worth billions of dollars.

But the Nabors 27-E rig used to drill the wells has been demobilized, and ExxonMobil would appear to have a tight window now for installing facilities to produce the condensate by the 2014 deadline.

A 22-mile pipeline also must be built to connect the remote Point Thomson field to the Slope’s existing pipeline network.

Of course, the deal now on the table between DNR and ExxonMobil might feature a whole new development scenario.

“The settlement is focused on the development of the Point Thomson unit which contains both hydrocarbon liquids and gas and we believe that the settlement of this litigation should help advance the strategic goals of filling TAPS and commercializing North Slope gas,” Sullivan told legislators.

10 Things That Must Change

10 Things That Must Change
By Doug Kass

This blog post originally appeared on RealMoney Silver on Aug. 3 at 8:25 a.m. EDT.
It is said that confidence is contagious and so is the lack of confidence. And these days, this statement applies directly to our Representatives' rancor and overall behavior over the past month in Washington, D.C.
A domestic economic recovery on a slow trajectory path is exposed to policy mistakes and external shocks (e.g., geopolitical, oil spike, etc.). It is now clear that confidence has been sufficiently eroded, in part, by the Washington circus -- and this has, in part, served to undermine growth and has jeopardized our equity markets.
I have written extensively about investors' consternation toward our country's politicians. Over the past few weeks, in "My 'Fast Money Halftime Report' Recap" and "Partisanship Trumps Progress," I have described the potential headwinds to economic growth and stock market appreciation instilled by the lack of confidence (on the part of businesses and consumers) caused by the ineptitude and bitterness in the latest debate over the debt ceiling and budget issues.
Indeed, back in late 2010, my surprise list for 2011 included two surprises on the manner in which partisan politics would inhibit economic growth and limit the upside to equities.
Surprise No. 2:
Partisan politics cuts into business and consumer confidence and economic growth in the last half of 2011.
Increased hostilities between the Republicans and Democrats become a challenge to the market and to the economic recovery next year....
The resulting bickering yields little progress on deficit reduction. Nor does the rancor allow for an advancement of much-needed and focused legislation geared toward reversing the continued weak jobs market.
Surprise No. 9:
A new political party emerges. Screwflation becomes a theme that has broadening economic social and political implications. Similar to its first cousin stagflation, screwflation is an expression of a period of slow and uneven economic growth, but, in addition, it holds the existence of inflationary consequences that have an outsized impact on a specific group. The emergence of screwflation hurts just the group that authorities want to protect -- namely, the middle class, a segment of the population that has already spent a decade experiencing an erosion in disposable income and a painful period (at least over the past several years) of lower stock and home prices.
Importantly, quantitative easing is designed to lower real interest rates and, at the same time, raise inflation. A lower interest rate policy hurts the savings classes -- both the middle class and the elderly. And inflation in the costs of food, energy and everything else consumed (without a concomitant increase in salaries) will screw the average American who doesn't benefit from QE2.
Stagnating wages and ever higher food and other costs energize Middle America, the chief victim of screwflation, and a new party, the American Party, emerges chiefly through a viral campaign begun on Facebook. This centrist initiative initially is endorsed by several independent Republican and Democratic Congressmen, but a ratification by Senator Joe Lieberman (Connecticut) leads to several Senatorial endorsements as it becomes clear that the American Party's ranks are growing rapidly. (Both the Tea Party and Sarah Palin abruptly disappear from the public dialogue.)
By the end of 2011, between 5% and 10% of all U.S. voters are believed to be members of the American Party. With its newfound popularity, the American Party asks New York City Mayor Bloomberg to become its leader. By year-end 2011, he has not yet made a decision.
This morning I want to change my stripes; instead of focusing on and being critical of the disruptive impact of the deliberations in Washington, D.C. last week, I want to propose some solutions (a hat tip to Omega's Lee Cooperman who helped me on some of these suggestions).
So, if I were king of the forest, here are 10 changes I would immediately enact:
1. Establish term limits for all our representatives.
2. Limit government spending. Set a specific limitation on the annual gains in spending to be less than the increase in consumer price index.
3. Develop a comprehensive jobs plan.
4. Fix housing. Over 15 million homeowners are underwater with their mortgages, the shadow inventory of unsold homes is a drag on a housing recovery, and we must find a way to find a way to reemploy over 2 million former housing-related workers. We need a Marshall Plan for housing. I would suggest that the Obama administration reach out to the two most knowledgeable and smartest guys in the residential real estate markets, Eli Broad and Bob Toll. I would have them all meet in a locked room with Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, Treasury Secretary Geithner and President Obama (and his economic team).
5. Raise taxes on the rich. Put a three-year income tax surcharge (of 10% to 15%) on incomes above $500,000.
6. Create a health care czar and tackle our health care industry's delivery and costs.
7. Mean test entitlements, freeze entitlement payouts and gradually increase the social security retirement age to 70 years old.
8. Exit Afghanistan and Iraq immediately. More effectively rationalize the defense budget and provide returning soldiers full tuition to vocational schools and colleges as they have sacrificed much.
9. Build infrastructure. Set up an infrastructure bank, and place the money saved on defense into a massive build-out and improvement of the U.S. infrastructure base.
10. Create energy self-sufficiency. Develop a comprehensive plan designed to rapidly develop all of our energy resources.