Resource companies are investing heavily in Arctic activities and major decisions are pending that could shape the pace of Arctic resource development for the next decade.
BP, which operates the huge Prudhoe Bay field in Alaska, has signed a $17 billion exploration agreement with Russia. Exxon-Mobil spent $600 million for the rights to explore a tiny lease in the Beaufort Sea, and this year BP paid $1.2 billion to explore in the same region. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management announced last week that itwill sell lease rightsfor oil and gas explorationin 2.6 million acres ofthe National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. The Alaska State Senate will decide this week on whether to issue an exclusive license to pursue federal certification for the 1,715-mile pipeline to TransCanada Corp., a Canadian company. If approved, TransCanada could receive up to $500-million (U.S.) of government funding to advance the project to the construction stage by 2014. That project is expected to cost between $26 billion and $30 billion, more than 60 per cent higher than the estimated cost for the proposed Mackenzie gas pipeline in the Northwest Territories. Imperial Oil and its partners - ConocoPhillips Canada, Shell Canada Limited. ExxonMobll Canada and the Aboriginal Pipeline Croup (APG) - say the earliest the Mackenzie Pipeline project could be on line is 2014, three years later than the original startup target of 2011 and at $16.2 billion and rising, far more than the original estimate of $4 billion. The stakes are high. If the Alaska Highway pipeline goes ahead, it will delay or kill the Mackenzie Valley project, negating the $100 million so far invested in research, training, socio-economic agreements, negotiations and the regulatory review process.
I've been sitting on the bid for 2 days at 45 and haven't gotten a single share. Trust me nobody is going anywhere until this stock starts to move north.
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