Update at 1:15 p.m.
A state-owned corporation voted unanimously Thursday afternoon to advance the proposed Alaska LNG gas line project for another year, though board members didn't say if Alaska had received long-sought guarantees from three oil company partners to make their gas available if they dropped out of the project. The 2016 budget for the state is about $60 million, roughly one-fourth of the project's costs for next year.
Original Story:
The board of the Alaska Gasline Development Corp. on Thursday morning delayed a key vote to on the proposed $55 billion natural gas pipeline, allowing continued negotiations between the state and its three oil company partners on the project.
The board began its meeting at 9 a.m. at its Midtown Anchorage office as scheduled, but after a few procedural decisions, it suspended the meeting until 1 p.m.
Negotiations went until about 9 p.m. Wednesday evening with "very good progress," and the negotiating team asked for "a little more time" Thursday morning, said Miles Baker, AGDC's spokesman.
There are two problems that the administration of Gov. Bill Walker is trying to resolve, he said.
One is to whether the state will still get access to gas to fill the massive pipeline if one or more of the companies decides to withdraw from the project partnership. A second is whether the partnership would get to keep using the work that's already been done on the project if a party drops out.