TransCanada pipeline bidding ends Friday

Tony Palmer, vice president of Alaska development for TransCanada Corp., said in an interview Thursday morning that his company intends to release some "generic information" about the bids once the open season closes and the bids are opened, at about 2 p.m Friday. "If we have no bids, we'll be able to say so immediately," Palmer said. If bids are received, he said the company will be able to say whether or not there were significant bids accounting for substantial volume of the proposed large diameter pipeline.

But Calgary-based TransCanada does not intend to reveal individual bids or bidders or total volume until all contractual agreements are in place, which Palmer hopes would be by the end of the year. Ultimately, the federal regulatory process requires that contracts be revealed 10 days after they are executed, and the company must disclose names, volumes and terms of the agreements, he said.

Palmer heads the Alaska Pipeline Project, a joint venture of TransCanada and Exxon Mobil Corp.. The proposal was first championed by former Gov. Sarah Palin and is now backed by Gov. Sean Parnell. Alaska has already committed up to $500 million in subsidies to the TransCanada project through the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act, which was approved by the Alaska Legislature when Palin was governor. That proposal has two options -- a line running from the North Slope into Canada or, under certain circumstances, one from the Slope to a plant in Valdez, where natural gas would be liquefied and shipped out on tankers, perhaps overseas.

A second open season is also underway, this one for the Denali project, a joint venture of BP and ConocoPhillips that envisions a pipeline from the North Slope into Canada. That open season closes Aug. 4.

Read the rest of the story.