Speaker Harris: TransCanada won’t play hardball to get producers to ship gas

In a discussion of TransCanada’s legislative presentations, Rep. Ralph Samuels, R-Anchorage, said the Canadian pipeline company is providing no assurance that a pipeline will be built even if three major requests noted in the company's AGIA application are addressed. Those include establishment of a long-term gas tax regime by the state, a viable federal loan guarantee and congressional approval of a so-called bridge shipper financing.

Although Samuels said, “it behooves them to ship the gas," he added that, absent producers voluntary participation to sign contracts to ship gas, suing the North Slope majors to comply with production requirements in their lease terms is the only “hammer” the state holds.

Samuels’ prompted Harris to declare that TransCanada is conflicted by other business arrangements with North Slope shippers in Canada and the Lower 48.

“They are not big enough and they are not strong enough to fight the producers,” Harris said, describing TransCanada's three contract terms (the new federal guarantees) as “passing the buck” to the state or federal government.

“If it’s a matter of litigation or trying to put a heavy hand on the producers we are going to have to do that, the state by itself, without TransCanada," Harris said.