Efforts to build a natural gas pipeline from Alaska’s North Slope are facing new obstacles and competition from elsewhere in the United States and abroad, according to a report in the Anchorage Daily News (www.adn.com). The report says new drilling techniques have made natural gas a plentiful resource in many regions of the United States, while imports of liquefied natural gas from abroad have added to the competition facing the prospective North Slope pipeline.
As long as the supply of natural gas remains high, the Anchorage Daily News says it will be difficult for proponents of the North Slope pipeline to justify the cost of the project. And with large reserves of shale gas being exploited in other parts of the United States and the emergence of liquefied natural gas on the import front, the Anchorage Daily News reports that the current state of the market does not look favorable for the North Slope pipeline. However, the report says to accurately assess the viability of the North Slope pipeline, one must project market conditions in 2018, which would be the first year North Slope gas would be available on the market. The Anchorage Daily News describes such a forecast as a "murky" undertaking.
For the Anchorage Daily News’s full report on this story, click here.
