AGDC’s new liquefied natural gas (LNG) project will be an integrated gas infrastructure development with three main components in the form of a gas treatment facility, a pipeline and a natural gas liquefaction plant.

The gas treatment facility will be built at Prudhoe Bay while the pipeline will be of 800 miles and will connect to Southcentral Alaska. On the other hand, a natural gas liquefaction unit will be built in Nikiski to process 20 million tons of LNG per year for export.

AGDC president Keith Meyer said: “Today’s FERC filing marks a major milestone in moving the Alaska LNG project forward.

“This is the culmination of over one million man hours invested in project engineering and design, more than 193,000 acres mapped, over 300 streams surveyed, thousands of boreholes drilled along the proposed route, and approximately 50,000 pages of material submitted to FERC.”

FERC will lead the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) review process for the project. The federal agency is responsible for the siting, construction and operation of liquefied natural gas (LNG) export projects in the country.

It will prepare an environmental impact statement (EIS) for the Alaska LNG project besides coordinating permit applications with other federal departments.

FERC is expected to publish a schedule for the NEPA process in the federal register that underlines the time to create a draft EIS which is likely to take a year and a final EIS six months following it.

The result of the NEPA process will decide whether FERC will authorize AGDC to build the Alaska LNG project or not.

AGDC has also filed for permits from other federal agencies that include Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), Bureau of Land Management, National Marine Fisheries Service, and the Army Corps of Engineers.

In January, AGDC entered into a cooperation agreement with oil and gas giant BP to jointly develop the financial and tolling structure needed to move the Alaska gasline and LNG project forward.

Image: AGDC has filed application seeking permit to develop the Alaska LNG project. Photo: puttsk/Freedigitalphotos.net.