Thoughts on Alaska Oil & Gas

While doing some research this past week for an upcoming piece in the Alaska Business Monthly (ABM) I ran across a telling footnote.  The upcoming piece is about the potential effect of Alaska OCS development on state finances; it will appear in the September edition of the ABM.

The footnote is from a February 2011 joint study prepared for Shell Oil Company by Anchorage-based Northern Economics and the University of Alaska-Anchorage’s Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER).  Somewhat misleadingly, the study is entitled “Potential National-Level Benefits of Alaska OCS Development.”  The title is somewhat misleading because the 2011 study also updates a review of the state-level benefits reflected in an earlier, 2009 study for the same client by the same groups. Continue reading →

At their invitation, yesterday I provided a status report on Alaska LNG Projects to the Mat-Su Borough Port Commission. Understandably, the Commission is interested in the potential use of Port MacKenzie as a terminus for such a project.

The purpose of the presentation was to provide a broad background of all three Alaska projects for the Commission’s discussions, and at the request of Commissioner Paul DuClos to provide a “reality check” on where the projects likely are headed.  Andrew Wellner of the Mat-Su Frontiersman caught my summation well in his story on the meeting: Continue reading →

On Tuesday of this week (June 25, 2013) the Anchorage Daily News published a letter to the editor from Sharon Leighow, Governor Parnell’s Press Secretary, responding to a Compass piece published earlier in the month from Bella Hammond, former Governor Jay Hammond’s widow. 

In the earlier piece, Ms. Hammond urged Alaskans to sign the petition currently circulating in the state seeking the repeal of SB 21, the Governor’s recent oil tax bill (and which the Administration prefers to call the “More Alaska Production Act”).  Ms. Hammond argued that absent repeal, Alaska faces a difficult economic future. Continue reading →

From 2 – 5pm Friday — tomorrow as I write this and probably this afternoon as many of you read it — I will be guest hosting The Dave Stieren Show.

The show is broadcast on AM 750 KFQD/ FM 103.7  if in Anchorage.  For those Continue reading →

An excellent overview of the federal permit requirements related to the export of Alaska LNG, prepared by the Institute of the North.  Listen closely; there will be a closed book test at the end.

Joe Perkins of Stoel Rives and I have been working with Law Seminars International over the last couple of months to put together a conference on oil, gas and mining investment in Alaska.  With the passage of SB 21, oil & gas investors once again are giving Alaska projects a hard look.  While dipping recently, long term increases in prices have done the same on the mining side.

The conference is an effort to provide a forum for discussing the issues surrounding investment in Alaska.  The goal is to help current and potential investors better understand the current investment climate in these sectors, and to provide a forum to discuss the gains made to date, and the additional work that remains to be done, to help bring additional focus to Alaskan opportunities. Continue reading →

Those of you who read these pages will know that I am transitioning from my role as Partner and Co-Head of the Oil & Gas Practice at Perkins Coie, LLP, to my own consulting firm effective at the beginning of June (now, just 6 days away).  I am looking forward to the transition and having more time to focus on, write about — and work to provide leadership on — what I believe are important issues facing Alaska.  This week I agreed, for example, to move from a bi-monthly to regular monthly column in the Alaska Business Monthly effective July 1, and expand the column to include fiscal issues.

In the course of starting to pack up, however, I learned  that Perkins Coie once again has been named by Chambers and Partners, a firm that provides global rankings of firms and lawyers, as one of the top law firms in Alaska for “Environment, Natural Resources & Regulated Industries.”   Their summary of the firm’s Alaska practice in the area:  Continue reading →