Tag: oil

TransCanada and Exxon Mobil are deferring filing the next step in paperwork to get a natural gas pipeline built to the Lower 48, and they’re assigning responsibility for that to Governor Sean Parnell.

The US Army Corps of Engineers has granted a permit to ConocoPhillips Alaska that will give the company access to the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.

Stories up for discussion this week are: Palin not running for president; Municipal elections results outside Anchorage; Anchorage Mayor Dan Sullivan's proposed budget for 2012; Alaska's oil and has tax report to legislature, soaring prison costs, State settles suit over rural schools, Alaska Native Corporation EyakTek corruption scheme, and John Katz steps down as head of the Governor's office in Washington. KSKA: Friday 10/7 at 2:00 pm & Sat 10/8 at 6:00 pm KAKM: Friday 10/7 at 7:30 pm & Sat 10/8 at 5:00 pm

The federal government is upholding the 2008 oil and gas lease sale in the Chukchi Sea. The sale was challenged in court and last year, a judge required the Interior Department to complete a supplemental environmental impact statement and then decide whether to vacate the sale.

Monday, the state Senate and House Finance Subcommittees on Correction are holding a joint hearing on ways to cut what the state spends on its prison system. It's called "The Smart Justice Summit" and will evaluate methods to solve what Anchorage Democrat Johnny Ellis calls the "prison growth crisis." Ellis is Senate Rules chairman as well as chairman of the Senate subcommittee.

A giant drilling rig is completely blocking one of the main roads near Prudhoe Bay.

A new study on the Trans Alaska Pipeline System has an optimistic take on the problem of declining oil in the pipeline.

Tuesday, legislators began looking at the discrepancy between Department of Labor reports of high employment on the North Slope and high unemployment among Alaskans qualified to work there.

The oil and gas industry is about to start exploratory drilling in the deeper waters of Cook Inlet, perhaps by tomorrow. One Jack-up drilling rig is in place and a second was just bought and the owner hopes to have it drilling here by next spring.

The old slogan “Alaska – North to the Future” was once considered wishful thinking, but now it’s coming true.

The federal agency overseeing offshore petroleum drilling says it has corrected flaws in environmental work done ahead of a 2008 lease sale in the Chukchi Sea.

Shell is working to contain an oil spill from one of its pipelines in the North Sea off the coast of Scotland. The crew on an oil platform there first observed a light sheen in the water last Wednesday. Around 1,300 barrels of oil have spilled so far into the sea.

A forum in downtown Anchorage Tuesday highlighted the need for a new look at multi-national regulatory systems which deal with oil and gas development. Dr. Betsy Baker, with the Vermont Law School Institute for Energy and the Environment, addressed the Institute of the North as part of the Institute’s Week of the Arctic program.

There is an estimate out now of the amount of crude oil spilled from Royal Dutch Shell's offshore platform in the North Sea - about 1,300 barrels. Shell was able to depressurize the leaking pipe and then discovered an undersea valve from the same well was also leaking what it characterized as a small amount.

Royal Dutch Shell has an oil spill at an offshore platform in the North Sea, about 100 miles East of Aberden, Scotland. The spill appears to be in an undersea pipe, and the company says it shut down production from a well on Wednesday to de-pressurize the pipe.

Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Bob Papp is in Alaska. He arrived along with Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who left Wednesday. But the Commandant remains in Barrow, looking into what sort of installation the Coast Guard might put there, now that the Interior Department has awarded the permits for Shell to drill in the Beaufort Sea.

A jack-up oil drilling rig is now moving into position to begin exploratory drilling in Cook Inlet. Steve Sutherlin, Strategic Officer for Texas-based Escopeta Oil, says the company got clearance from Customs and Border Protection to begin moving the rig out of Kachemak Bay early Wednesday morning.