Fairbanks Daily News-Miner Editorial

Enthusiasm for the proposed bullet line to deliver North Slope natural gas to the Railbelt needs to be tempered with some hard questions.

The report released Thursday estimated that a mid-size line, among those analyzed, could cost up to $8 billion. If the line’s cost were spread across about 500 million cubic feet per day of gas, the transportation charges would be about $9 per thousand cubic feet.

That seems to create an opportunity for much lower prices than Fairbanks customers are paying today for natural gas trucked up from Cook Inlet.

However, a base pipeline tariff of $9 per thousand cubic feet — which doesn’t count several other potential costs — is hardly a deal when compared to prices throughout the country. Gas is selling at about half that price at major supply hubs Outside.
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