Nine days after state officials published an update on TransCanada Corp.'s North Slope gas pipeline project, the team behind BP and Conoco Phillip's competing Denali gas-line project issued its own update Thursday.

In a 22-page report submitted to legislators, the Denali team said it has begun talking to potential gas shippers -- companies such as BP and Conoco that hold leases on the North Slope -- and is putting together plans for an open season next year.

Both Denali and TransCanada plan to hold open seasons for their competing projects next year. That's when they will publish shipping rates and try to get North Slope producers to commit their gas to a gas line. But state officials and industry experts say that any bids offered by the producers during open season probably will have conditions attached. That means more time will pass before any final deals are struck, as the pipeline companies, the potential shippers and perhaps the state try to troubleshoot those conditions.

TransCanada's open season is scheduled to run from May to July. Denali has declined to say when it will start its open season, saying that is private information. The company said it will publish a timeline for building the pipeline during Denali's open season.

In Thursday's report, Denali said it has 95 people working on the project -- roughly the same amount of bodies at work on TransCanada competing gas-line project. Exxon joined TransCanada's project in June, bolstering its budget and its workforce.

Denali also submitted sketches of a proposed multibillion-dollar gas treatment plant on the North Slope. It would be the largest plant of its kind in the world and building it would require the largest sealift of equipment in Alaska history, the report said.

In response to recent speculation about dimming prospects for North Slope gas production in light of massive amounts of shale gas in the Lower 48, Denali emphasized that long-term forecasts of future gas prices have not changed much in the past six months.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration recently issued a report saying that oil and gas resources in the Arctic are difficult, expensive and controversial to develop, and that the globe's "potentially large shale gas resource could significantly defer the future development of Arctic natural gas resources."

Denali said that it is ultimately the North Slope gas shippers that will decide the viability of the pipeline, not forecasters at the EIA, who don't "represent a consensus view of the market."

On the other hand, the Denali report said, the recent volatility of prices and the potential availability of massive amounts of gas in the Lower 48 "has highlighted the market risk" of the North Slope project.

In the past year, the key Lower 48 price of natural gas has ranged from $6.84 per million BTU of energy to $1.88, with the price settling at $3.23 on Thursday.