Natural gas pipeline construction planning: several variables keep an important project on hold.

• Author: White, Rindi
• Position: CONSTRUCTION

Fairbanks residents pay more than twice what Southcentral natural gas consumers pay to heat their homes. Southcentral Alaska consumers are poised to get a shocking price increase when Cook Inlet natural gas supplies are no longer able to meet demand and gas must be imported to Alaska, an event predicted to happen in 2015. Bush communities are forced to pay even more--sometimes up to 70 percent of their income--for energy than almost anywhere in the nation.

In short, many Alaskans are facing an energy crisis or are already in the middle of one. And although a commercial gas line to export natural gas being produced but reinjected on the North Slope has been in the works for several years, it doesn't appear the line is any closer to reality--and even if built, it's questionable whether communities could tap into the line for their own use.

Enter the Alaska Gasline Development Corp. Created in 2010, AGDC is a state corporation tasked with developing a natural gas pipeline that will deliver North Slope gas to as many communities in Southcentral and Interior Alaska as possible.

"We report to the Legislature and to the governor's office," says Leslye Langla, public affairs director for the corporation. To date, AGDC has received $72 million from the Legislature, money Langla says has been used to study whether the project is feasible and to begin work on permitting and environmental testing. Langla says the corporation estimates it will take about $400 million to get the project to the construction phase.

The project would build a natural gas pipeline from the Prudhoe Bay to the ENSTAR distribution system located near Point MacKenzie in the Mat-Su Borough. Langla said "lean gas" or gas ready for consumer use and propane is included in the latest pipeline model. The natural gas liquids, or chemicals such as methane, ethane, propane and butane that frequently are produced along with pure natural gas, will have been removed before entering the pipeline at a $1.7 billion gas treatment facility. AGDC determined the natural gas liquids are not economical to ship, as there is a glut on the market due to the Lower 48 shale gas boom. Processing upfront, Langla says, will allow communities access to natural gas without having to pay high costs associated with extraction plants along the pipeline.

"Communities won't need expensive straddle plants anymore," she says. "Nenana and Talkeetna could get gas--as could any community that wants to build out an...