Alaska group sues oil majors in gas dispute
Posted on: Tuesday, 20 December 2005, 02:27 CST
By Yereth Rosen
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - A group of Alaska local governments aiming to build a natural gas pipeline filed a federal lawsuit on Monday accusing BP and Exxon Mobil Corp of violating antitrust laws.
The Alaska Gasline Port Authority filed its lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Fairbanks, Alaska, alleging that the oil majors had tried to prevent it from securing a deal for the new pipeline by keeping North Slope natural gas off the market.
The group, representing local governments from the North Slope, Fairbanks and Valdez, plans to build and operate an 800-mile (1,287-km) natural gas pipeline that would parallel the existing trans-Alaska oil pipeline.
The group aims to use its lawsuit to "acquire gas in a free market environment, nothing more, at a fair market value," said Jim Whitaker, mayor of the Fairbanks North Star Borough.
"That's all we've ever asked."
The group's pipeline project, known as the "All-Alaska" pipeline, would transport natural gas to Valdez, where it would be chilled and liquefied and shipped by tankers to U.S. and Canadian ports.
BP, Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips are in talks with Alaska Gov. Frank Murkowski to build a rival pipeline that would run from Prudhoe Bay through western Canada into the U.S. Midwest.
The project would cost at least $20 billion and deliver at least 4 billion cubic feet of natural gas a day, according to state officials.
The lawsuit alleges BP and Exxon Mobil engaged in illegal agreements, mergers and acquisitions that allowed them to prevent the sale of natural gas from the North Slope, which holds about 35 trillion cubic feet of known natural gas.
The lawsuit also claims that BP breached state law by violating a charter it signed with Alaska in 1999 as a condition of its acquisition of Atlantic Richfield.
Officials from BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc. and Exxon Mobil were not immediately available for comment.
The lawsuit does not name Alaska's biggest oil producer, ConocoPhillips. Whitaker declined to say why.
Source: REUTERS
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