Correct. The older the car, the more maintenance needed.
As for the gas pipeline, the oil companies did take it, they approved Murkowski's plan. They negotiated the deal with Murkowski.
Thanks for getting me out there to learn more. They did NOT take Murkowski’s deal. (See Murkowski’s daughter applauding Palin). They also did not take Palin’s deal! Palin set up a deal with TransCanada pipeline. BP and ConocoPhillips, just before the vote on the TransCanada pipeline said “we’ll build our own”.
So, if the BP-ConocoPhillips pipeline wasn’t just a political ploy, there will be increased competition with two pipelines (assuming Exxon uses the TransCanada pipeline).
From an April, 2008 article on the net:
The tax question long has been a sticking point on a gas line.
Tuesday’s announcement, however, showed how much ground the oil companies have surrendered in their demands of the state. Two years ago, under Palin’s predecessor, Frank Murkowski, the trio of BP, Conoco and Exxon insisted they needed a tax freeze not only on gas but oil as well, and they negotiated a gas pipeline contract to that effect.
But the contract was politically unpopular and faded before lawmakers ever voted on it.
Now the state appears on the brink of possibly awarding a license, cash and other incentives to TransCanada.
TIMING QUESTIONED
That BP struck a partnership with Conoco and announced it Tuesday, with only five days left in the regular legislative session, struck many lawmakers as shrewd timing.
Sen. Hollis French, D-Anchorage, said the partnership could chisel away at the will of many lawmakers to grant a license to TransCanada, which unlike the oil companies doesn’t control any of the North Slope’s prodigious 35 trillion cubic feet of gas.
“I hope Alaskans are viewing this with the skeptical eye it deserves,” French said. “It could potentially confuse people about the reality of a TransCanada pipeline with the illusion of a producer line.”
Of course, neither TransCanada nor any other company has promised to actually start welding pipe.
Wasilla Republican Sen. Charlie Huggins, an ex-Army colonel and chairman of the Senate Resources Committee, sounded excited about BP and Conoco competing with TransCanada for a pipeline.
“In the military vernacular, this puts Alaska on the high ground,” he said.
Huggins noted BP and Conoco said they’d use their own money, $600 million, to plan the pipeline while TransCanada wants a $500 million subsidy from the state.
That subsidy money, he said, could build a lot of schools and pave a lot of roads.
House Speaker John Harris, R-Valdez, said he visited Tuesday with BP and Conoco executives at the Capitol and they said their project is real.
Harris and others said they believe Exxon eventually will join the partnership if BP and Conoco move ahead with a pipeline.
Tuesday’s events seemed to echo the procession seen under the Murkowski administration, when Conoco was the first to show interest in a gas line, followed by BP and then Exxon.
Margaret Ross, an Exxon spokeswoman in Houston, said the company learned of the BP alliance with Conoco a few days ago and will need time to see whether their approach will lead to a “commercially viable development.”
TRANSCANADA HOLDS FIRM
Steve Porter, a former Conoco employee and deputy state revenue commissioner now advising the Legislature on the gas line, said he believes TransCanada doesn’t really want to build or own the Alaska portion of a pipeline.
And even if TransCanada doesn’t get the state license or build the pipeline, it’s still likely to achieve a major objective — having Alaska gas flow into its extensive North American pipeline network once it reaches Alberta, Porter said.
Tony Palmer, TransCanada’s vice president for Alaska business development, said his company is awaiting word May 19 on whether the Palin administration will recommend the company for the state license. He said TransCanada stands firm on its AGIA bid and welcomes the North Slope oil companies as either competitors or partners.
As to whether the BP-Conoco partnership could cause members of Alaska’s House and Senate to waver and vote against a TransCanada license, Palmer said: “I do believe both bodies are sophisticated and are fully capable of comparing our proposal to any others.”
Alaska Republican U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, the former governor’s daughter, said an alliance of two oil companies controlling more than 60 percent of Slope gas is “great news for Alaska.” She said she hopes TransCanada and Exxon soon join the partnership.
And she complimented Palin.
“By her tough stance over the past two years, she has brought the companies around to building a gas line now,” Murkowski said.