Book Description

On August 27, 2008, the governor of Alaska signed legislation awarding a license to TransCanada Alaska (TransCanada) to permit, develop, and build a natural gas pipeline from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, to the gas market hub in Alberta, Canada, with $500 million of state support. Since the discovery of significant oil and gas reserves in Prudhoe Bay in 1968, Alaska state and federal policymakers have sought to accelerate bringing these important energy resources to market, especially to market in the lower-48 states. The Trans Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS) began shipping crude oil from Prudhoe Bay in 1978. Efforts to build a gas pipeline still have achieved little progress 30 years later. This report provides a brief review of efforts to develop and construct a natural gas pipeline from Prudhoe Bay, a status report on recent efforts to proceed, and an analysis of major relevant policy issues. In 1976, Congress passed the Alaska Natural Gas Transportation Act (ANGTA) as one element of a multi-pronged effort to respond to the natural gas supply problems caused by earlier wellhead price controls. Engineering work was underway on the pipeline when, in the early 1980s, the natural gas market in North America entered a prolonged period ...