TransCanada Alaska Co. LLC (TC Alaska) has suspended development of the North Slope-to-Alberta leg (Alberta option) of its planned Alaska Pipeline Project while it assesses other alternatives to commercialize Alaska North Slope gas, including the potential export of liquefied North Slope gas, FERC said in its 14th report to Congress on the Alaska pipeline project.

Following an unsuccessful open season, “TC Alaska notified the [Federal Energy Regulatory] Commission on May 11 it was curtailing interim work on the Alberta option while requesting to maintain the record in Docket No. PF09-11 for potential future use. Keeping the prefiling docket open will enable the draft resource reports and other information…to remain viable until TC Alaska moves forward on either the Alberta option or another alternative,” FERC said.

TC Alaska “also indicated it was working with Alaska North Slope producers to explore the feasibility of developing a liquefied natural gas (LNG) export project that would include constructing a pipeline from the North Slope to an LNG export terminal at an undetermined location in Southcentral Alaska (LNG option). TC Alaska estimated that it would file an application with the Commission for that project in October 2014,” the agency told Congress (see Daily GPI, May 4).

“The Commission will not move forward to the next step in its NEPA [National Environmental Policy Act] process until TC Alaska decides whether it will proceed with a pipeline to serve North American markets (Alberta option) or embarks on a project to liquefy and export natural gas to foreign markets (LNG option).”

©Copyright 2012Intelligence Press Inc. All rights reserved. The preceding news reportmay not be republished or redistributed, in whole or in part, in anyform, without prior written consent of Intelligence Press, Inc.