Apex Resources Inc (SLMLF)

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Alaska Supreme Court and ExxonMobil

The state, which is trying to dissolve the Point Thomson unit for lack of development by the leaseholders, appealed to the Supreme Court after an adverse lower court ruling in January 2010.

The DNR’s appeal has not advanced at all, as lawyers for the state and ExxonMobil have repeatedly, and together, asked the justices for time to concentrate on trying to work out a settlement of the case out of court. Previously, the high court routinely granted these timeouts, which relieve the lawyers of the burden of writing heavy legal briefs.

Now the Supreme Court is signaling that, barring a settlement or great progress toward a settlement, it’s time to get on with the case. It set a deadline of May 5 for the state to file its opening brief.

other major stakeholders at Point Thomson including Chevron, BP and ConocoPhillips have expressed dissatisfaction that they’ve been excluded from the talks, and have not been favored with copies of draft settlement documents.

David Eglinton, an ExxonMobil spokesman in Houston, said by e-mail: “We are continuing to make progress on settlement, but additional work remains.”

Located on state acreage along the Beaufort Sea coast about 60 miles east of Prudhoe Bay, the field contains an estimated 8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas plus hundreds of millions of barrels of petroleum liquids.

Exxon discovered the field in the late 1970s, but hasn’t developed it — to the growing dismay of state officials.

It’s the lack of a gas pipeline — a multibillion-dollar asset — that ExxonMobil has cited as the primary reason the field hasn’t been developed.

"It’s the lack of a gas pipeline"

“The parties have received previous extensions of time and stays totaling over 200 days,” the court said in a two-page order. “This amount of extended and stayed time would seem to have been more than sufficient to allow the parties to settle this case if the parties were serious about settlement and had been making deliberate, good faith efforts to do so. No further stay will be granted for this reason absent extraordinary and compelling showing that substantial progress towards settlement is being made and that additional time is very likely to achieve a global settlement.”

"No further stay will be granted"

On March 7, the state and ExxonMobil asked the court to stay the Point Thomson case for another 60 days while negotiations continue.

But the court on March 21 granted a stay of only 45 days — and indicated it’s not inclined to keep the case on hold any longer.

"It set a deadline of May 5"

Located on state acreage along the Beaufort Sea coast about 60 miles east of Prudhoe Bay, the field contains an estimated 8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas plus hundreds of millions of barrels of petroleum liquids.

http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/77062310.shtml
With Billions at stake...something good should happen soon! (IMO)

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.neb-one.gc.ca/clf-nsi/rpblctn/spchsndprsnttn/2009/nbprspctvtrndcndnlsppl/mg/mg33-eng.gif&imgrefurl=http://www.neb-one.gc.ca/clf-nsi/rpblctn/spchsndprsnttn/2009/nbprspctvtrndcndnlsppl/nbprspctvtrndcndnlsppl-eng.html&usg=__POtzeRpiXgb8VZDI09hEIl-QWDo=&h=375&w=500&sz=16&hl=en&start=15&zoom=1&tbnid=o-bTq0eG7HPauM:&tbnh=98&tbnw=130&ei=32SaTb3fLMbZgQfMr6HDBA&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dmackenzie%2Bpipeline%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26biw%3D1132%26bih%3D635%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1
(Either pipeline would do the job.)