The Alaska Gasline Development Corporation is still trying to broker a deal to take over the Alaska Liquified Natural Gas project, but it will not happen by its self-imposed end-of-the-year deadline.
This is the second deadline the project has missed in trying to take over the massive $45 billion-plus Alaska LNG project.
The state has been working toward a takeover since BP, ConocoPhillips and ExxonMobil balked at pursuing the project, after prices for oil and liquefied natural gas fell worldwide.
Corporation President Keith Meyer told board members on Dec. 21 that the transition agreements have taken months to finish. He said there are four things that need to be done to take over the project.
So far, AGDC has gotten the rights to all of the information developed by the project. It has also sent notice to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that it will go through the permitting process alone.
But that still leaves the question of what will happen to a big chunk of land on the Kenai Peninsula. The project bought 630 acres to house a natural gas liquefaction plant at the end of the pipeline.
Additionally, the corporation has not yet taken over a Department of Energy license that would allow the state to export LNG to non-free trade agreement countries.
Meyer told the board the negotiations on those points were still in progress, but agreements would not happen until next year.
Rashah McChesney is a photojournalist turned radio journalist who has been telling stories in Alaska since 2012. Before joining Alaska's Energy Desk, she worked at Kenai's Peninsula Clarion and the Juneau bureau of the Associated Press. She is a graduate of Iowa State University's Greenlee Journalism School and has worked in public television, newspapers and now radio, all in the quest to become the Swiss Army knife of storytellers.
