All Alaskan Pipeline Projects Make Most Sense for Alaska.

• Position: Brief Article

President Jimmy Carter and the U. S. Congress authorized construction of a gas pipeline from Prudhoe Bay to the Lower 48 in 1976 by the Alaska Natural Gas Transportation Act. But not until 2000 and the Alaska Gasline Port Authority, would it have been possible to build a tax free, non-taxable gasline, with the bulk of the profits going to the people. That is of course, providing Port Authority numbers encil out. Its pipeline is estimated to cost $26 billion and could transport up to 6 billion cubic feet of gas per day. With known reserves of 35 trillion cubic feet we have difficulty penciling out their project when we do the math using only those figures.

Reading between the lines of the tangled paper trail leading from the oil and power capitols of the world to the oil and gas patches of Alaska, it becomes clear why an all-Alaska gas pipeline has been stymied, stalled, and shelved. Those interested in learning more about the world of petroleum politics will find the stories behind the story laid out in three articles appearing in this issue of Alaska Business Monthly. The politics is complex and confusing, but we've tried to present it in such a way that it will be comprehensive and comprehensible.

At least seven pipeline projects have been proposed:

* Alaskan Arctic Pipeline, March 1974

* El Paso Alaska Pipeline, September 1974

* Alcan Project, March 1977

* Trans-Alaska Gas System, CSX/Yukon Pacific, 1982

* Foothills Pipeline Project, 1998

* Alaska Gasline Port Authority, 2000

* Cook Inlet Pipeline Terminus Group project, 2000

For the reasons given in Roger Kane's story that begins on page 78, we encourage Gov. Tony Knowles and the Legislature to carefully consider, and adopt one of the two all-Alaska projects, either the Trans-Alaska Gas System (CSX/Yukon Pacific) or the Alaska Gasline Port Authority plan.

Over a potential 30-year lifetime, the Port Authority plan claims it will return billions of dollars to...