"Profitable at any price" meet reality

May 15, 2010: For the last three years, the State of Alaska's gas line team headed by DNR Commissioner Tom Irwin have oft repeated the phrase "profitable at any price," to guide the state's natural gas pipeline strategy with AGIA.

Last Monday, the company that has the AGIA license to build the pipeline, said just the opposite; price matters. And right now the price is depressing according to their Alaska chief Tony Palmer.

"There are some encouraging signs. However, in the short run, $4 gas prices, for those of us that sit on the side of production and pipelines and so on, is rather depressing," Palmer said

Price matters.

And right now what matters most is the state is wasting money on AGIA process that reflects Irwin's oft repeated phrase "profitable at any price" or essentially, price doesn't matter.

Price has always mattered.

That's why not one gas producing company bid on AGIA...because a $40 billion natural gas pipeline is not profitable at any price...so says even the guy the state hired to build the thing under AGIA.

That grinding sound?

It's the wheels, and they're coming off.