Governor Palin? Really?

I really hope we hear in the coming days why Alaska Governor Sarah Palin chose to step down this week, because the timing is at best puzzling.

Fair enough, she didn't want to be a "lame duck" for the rest of her term after announcing her decision not to run for reelection, but as AK State Rep John Harris noted to the Anchorage Daily News, she didn't have to announce that decision for another year.

Arguably, Palin was making political progress. She'd successfully upbraided David Letterman, forcing a public apology from the Late Night host after he'd made a couple of unfortunate jokes about her family, and, more significantly, she'd seen her AGIA agenda bolstered considerably last month with the announced agreement of Exxon to work on TCPL's gasline project.

I don't think it's overstating to say that Palin's abrupt resignation casts some slight doubt over AGIA. She has been the public face of AGIA, and the process remains controversial enough that another leader may be reluctant to step in. It's not that the process can be derailed, but without firm political will one can imagine it becoming weakened and subverted. To be fair, many critics claim that the Exxon/Mobil-TCPL agreement represents just that.

Speculation runs rampant about Palin's motivations. Her critics claim she's avoiding a corruption investigation surrounding a controversial recreation complex built when she was Wasilla's mayor. Her supporters hint she may be preparing for a run at the GOP Presidential nomination for 2012.

Inuvik Getting Antsy

http://www.nationalpost.com/story.html?id=1750698

Not bad piece on the general air of frustration around the construction delays on the Mackenzie Valley project, and how long it's taken for the Joint Review Panel to release its final report.

The JRP wasn't such a bad idea. Get representatives from stakeholder groups, have them listen to submissions from virtually everyone, and try to reach a consensus that may not make everyone happy, but would hopefully leave all concerned "equally unhappy".

Since there was no deadline, though, the process sprawled from the 10 months it was originally anticipated to take to almost 4 years. And that's assuming they actually make their proposed deadline of this coming December for their report's release.

What's done is done. Their work cannot be accelerated, apparently. Pius Rohlheiser from Imperial Oil offered his company's resources if the JRP needed any help, but that may have seemed too much like a conflict of interest. The big question is, will it matter?

Personally, I don't think so. There's been some benefit from this delay, believe it or not, and it might be just enough to get this project over the hump:

1. Construction costs have declined with the global recession. This project might actually be cheaper to build now.
2. The recession itself has made many people take a long, hard look at the abyss; a project that stimulates the economy and provides long-term revenue both for regional businesses and the GNWT (if only in the form of taxes) is more attractive now than it might have been a year ago.
3. Generally broader support for "green" initiatives makes this an easier project to support from a political point of view

There is one other argument, though, that requires a bit more of a leap of faith to overcome: what about those shales? Those massive deposits of NG uncovered in the American south and Northern BC?

In a perverse way, these, too might help the overall economics of the northern pipeline projects. Cheap, easy-to-reach NG will pull prices down, and stimulate demand (bear in mind that a lot of US's electricity generating capacity either is currently NG, or can be quickly converted). New, long-term demand will squeeze supply, and by the time these pipelines are completed, there will be lots of demande for them to serve.

North America will need the gas from the Mackenzie Valley and Alaska Highway pipelines. This is as true now as it was 20 years ago, and it will still be true 20 years from now.

The "Aboriginal" Question

http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/Indian-And-Northern-Affairs-Canada-1008106.html

A common argument I've heard from some Alaskans when they express skepticism about the Alaska Highway Gas Line project is that Canadian aboriginal groups will stall construction with land claim issues. Given the interminable process that's been dragging out in the Mackenzie Delta with the Joint Review Panel there, I guess that's understandable.

Things are somewhat different in the Yukon, though. I do have to note that I am not First Nations myself, and I'm not privy to any discussion that's going on right now, but from the issues I've been following I see some significant differences between "here" and "there".

First, Yukon First Nations have generally been more engaged politically and economically than their counterparts in the NWT. Their involvement in economic development extends back even before the 1898 Klondike Gold Rush. Many FN families didn't merely benefit from the Gold Rush economy, they prospered from it. And--generally speaking--most Yukon FN groups have been supportive of responsible development.

Second, almost all identified First Nations groups in the Yukon have settled their land claims with the Canadian government. In most cases this means that there is a consultation process already in place (for the Mackenzie Valley Line, they essentially had to invent one from scratch). There is one significant exception, the Kaska/Dene that straddle the Yukon-British Columbia border in the Southeast Yukon; this group has served notice in the past that they expect fair treatment in discussions over the pipeline. Even so, this group has been working with the Yukon government on resource-sharing issues, and they are taking part in sidebar agreements on mining, gas exploration, and forestry on their traditional lands. Their engagement seems to be constructive.

The biggest reason that the Alaska Line won't see the same delays as the Mackenzie Line is... the Mackenzie Line itself. The strain from the delay is showing in the Delta, and in towns all along the route where businesses--in many cases aboriginal-owned businesses--have invested heavily for a project that's now years behind. The current world recession and the prospect of cheap gas elsewhere in North America has done nothing to lessen this strain.

The item I linked to here is a small but significant announcement: the federal govenment is providing funding to the aboriginal groups along the line's route so that they can afford to engage in discussions with government and pipeline proponents.

supportthepipeline.org Returns! (Sort of...)

I am pleased to present this blog as a kind of successor to a small website I operated a few years ago, www.supportthepipeline.org. It's a site I started in response to what I viewed at the time as undue preference on the part of Canadian officials for a Mackenzie Valley Gas Pipeline over an Alaska Highway gas line. Since neither project is yet underway even now, the point was moot.

This blog is not intended to be a news source. News on pipeline developments is available from a number of excellent sources, including Petroleum News, Northern Gas Pipelines, and the business pages of the Anchorage Daily News and the Calgary Herald. These are all great sources of information on northern pipeline projects, and I wouldn't dream of competing with them.

I mean for this blog to fill a small but significant gap; commentary on the northern pipeline projects and the impact they will have on the Yukon Territory.

Both projects will have a major impact on life in the Yukon. The Alaska Highway Natural Gas (AHNG) pipeline will have a more obvious impact, since it will actually run through the territory, but the Mackenzie Gas Pipeline (MGP) project is important to Yukoners, too. The construction of this line would employ many Yukon labourers, tradespeople and businesses, and may provide transportation for potential Yukon gas fields in the Eagle Plains region.

I think it's important that a "Yukon point of view" be presented on these major projects. I don't pretend to be the authority, but I'm definitely interested. I'd like to hear from others as well.

A Funny Thing Happened...

...as I waded through some of the fallout from ExxonMobil's announcement that they'd be participating in TransCanada Pipelines' proposed Alaska Natural Gas Pipeline project, I found an old friend, of sorts.

I discovered Dave Harbour's Northern Gas Pipelines site several years ago, when interest in building the Alaskan line once again rose over background noise to fool us all into thinking it might finally go ahead. Harbour is an Alaska insider who brought a wealth of information and insight from his connections to the web on a fairly regular basis, and his site was probably the authoratatve collection of news an fact on the proposed project. I visited Harbour's site so much that I managed to be his 100,000th visitor.

Unfortunately, Mr. Harbour had to stop contributing to the site, as he was appointed to a state government post that would have presented a conflict of interest. The site remained up, but with no new contributions after January 31, 2003.

My pleasant surprise was to revisit the site the other day, and find that Harbour had reinstated it last year following the end of his government appointment. He is still providing a great wealth of news and background information about the industry. However one feels about this project, Harbour's site is the best single source for information on it.