The sponsors of the TransCanada Alaska Co. LLC Alaska Pipeline Project took a major step forward Friday with the proposed Alaska natural gas pipeline by filing 11 draft environment reports with FERC. But the odds of the project becoming a reality still don’t look good.

The approximately 4,500 pages of documents — called draft resource reports — detail the project’s potential impact on soils, vegetation, streams, lakes, wetlands, water quality, wildlife, fish and other resources along the proposed 803-mile U.S. corridor from the Point Thomson field on Alaska’s North Slope to Prudhoe Bay to the Canadian border. The resource reports will serve as the foundation for an environmental impact statement for the Alaska portion of the pipeline.

TransCanada and ExxonMobil have been working on the Alaska pipeline project, which is estimated to cost $32 billion to $41 billion, since 2009, according to the Office of Federal Coordinator for Alaska Natural Gas Transportation Projects (OFC).

Despite submission of the reports, the outlook for the gas pipeline project is not bright. TransCanada, the pipeline builder, hasn’t been able to secure a single commitment from customers interested in buying Alaska’s stranded natural gas, the Alaska Dispatch reported. In addition, Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell is trying to shift the spotlight away from the project toward an all-Alaska gasline. There, the gas would then be liquefied for shipment to global markets, most likely in Asia where gas prices are much higher than in the Lower 48 (see Daily GPI, Jan. 9).

Even the federal coordinator, Larry Persily, recently estimated that the odds of an Alaska pipeline to Canada were at best 50-50 (see Daily GPI, Aug. 18, 2011). TransCanada and ExxonMobil “are moving ahead with the process at FERC,” but the filing of the draft resource reports “doesn’t mean that they’re building it [the pipeline],” he told NGI. “They haven’t ordered the steel.”

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and other government agencies with jurisdiction over the project will review the resource reports in the coming weeks, looking for gaps in the information that the project sponsor must fill before submitting final resource reports. An optimistic projection calls for the application to be filed in October.

The Commission has scheduled in the next few weeks a series of scoping meeting in communities along the proposed corridor to get public input on the project and its environmental impacts. The first meeting is due to held in Fairbanks on Jan. 30. FERC said it will accept verbal and/or written comments on the project through Feb. 27.

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