Alaska LNG re-engages buyers, North Slope producers; teams to meet

摘要

Technical teams from the state Alaska Gasline Development Corp. and North Slope producers BP and ExxonMobil will meet next week in Houston to begin a review of the $43 billion Alaska LNG project, hoping to find potential cost reductions, an AGDC spokesman said Tuesday. Discussions will begin April 2 and will last for several days, said AGDC's Tim Fitzpatrick in an interview. This work is expected to be done by late April, he said. "We have confirmed that about 25 technical folks from ExxonMobil, BP and AGDC will meet in Houston on the cost reduction workshops,” Fitzpatrick said. The Alaska LNG project includes an 800-mile, 42-inch gas pipeline capable of carrying a maximum 3.3 Bcf/d of gas from the North Slope to near Kenai in southern Alaska and a three-train liquefaction plant there that could annually export up to 20 million mt of LNG. The just-announced initiative grows out of a request earlier from Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy for AGDC to review the LNG project's feasibility and to ask North Slope gas producers to become investors and project managers. In response, BP and ExxonMobil signed agreements March 8 to provide technical assistance to the state corporation.