capital focus

I have to admit my enthusiam was not great for a Friday afternoon Senate Resources hearing on gas offtake rules, but it actually turned out to be fairly interesting.
For years, one of the questions in the background of the whole gas pipeline deal has been whether or not the state would even let it happen. The Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, an independent state agency charged with making sure fields are developed in ways that don’t waste the resource, ultimately gets to decide how much gas can be taken off from a field at a given time. (Keeping the gas underground increases oil production.)
Under Murkowski, the Big Three were proposing to ship 4.5 billion cubic feet a day from the slope, but the AOGCC limit for Prudhoe Bay — the biggest field — was just 2.7 bcf, and the companies hadn’t asked for a higher limit.
AOGCC commissioner Cathy Foerster made it really clear for the first time today that her agency won’t get in the way of a big gas line project.
That doesn’t answer another catchy question, which is when the mechanics of the North Slope fields make the economics of selling gas sweet for the producers.
If anyone knows, please let me know.