Alaska § 43.90.240 - Abandonment of project.

§ 43.90.240. Abandonment of project.

 (a) If the commissioners and the licensee agree that the project is uneconomic, the project shall be abandoned, the inducement provided for in AS 43.90.110 shall be terminated, and, except for requirements imposed on the licensee under (e) of this section and AS 43.90.220 , the state and the licensee no longer have an obligation under this chapter with respect to the license.

 (b) If the commissioners or the licensee determines that the project is uneconomic and the other party disagrees, the disagreement shall be settled by arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association under the substantive and procedural laws of this state, and judgment on the award rendered by the arbitrators may be entered in superior court in the state. In the event of arbitration, each party shall select an arbitrator from the American Arbitration Association's National Roster, and the two arbitrators shall appoint a third arbitrator from the American Arbitration Association's National Roster who shall serve as the chair of the three-member arbitration panel. If the arbitration panel determines that the project is        (1) uneconomic, the state and the licensee no longer have an obligation under this chapter with respect to the license, except for requirements imposed on the licensee under (e) of this section and AS 43.90.220 ; or

 (2) not uneconomic, the obligations of the licensee and the state continue as provided under this chapter and the license.

 (c) The arbitration panel in (b) of this section shall make a determination that the project is uneconomic only if the panel finds that the party claiming the project is uneconomic has proven by a preponderance of the evidence that the        (1) project does not have credit support sufficient to finance construction of the project through firm transportation commitments, government assistance, or other external sources of financing; and

 (2) predicted costs of transportation at a 100 percent load factor, when deducted from predicted gas sales revenue using publicly available predictions of future gas prices, would result in a producer rate of return that is below the rate typically accepted by a prudent oil and gas exploration and production company for incremental upstream investment that is required to produce and deliver gas to the project.

 (d) If the state makes a payment to the licensee under AS 43.90.440 , the license is considered abandoned, and the state and the licensee no longer have any obligations under this chapter with respect to the license, except that the licensee must comply with the        (1) requirements imposed on the licensee under AS 43.90.220 regarding state money received by the licensee before the license was considered abandoned; and

 (2) requirements of AS 43.90.440 .

 (e) If the commissioners and the licensee agree that the project is uneconomic or an arbitration panel makes a final determination that the project is uneconomic, the licensee shall, upon the state's request, transfer to the state or the state's designee all engineering designs, contracts, permits, and other data related to the project that are acquired by the licensee during the term of the license upon reimbursement by the state of the net amount of expenditures incurred and paid by the licensee that are qualified expenditures for the purposes of AS 43.90.110 .