newsminer.com

Brian Wenzel of ConocoPhillips told the House Resources Committee this afternoon that his company was looking for 20 to 25 years of certainty on gas taxes to get a gas line going. The length of time is based on the expectation that gas leaseholders would have to commit to ship their gas for that long to enable the project financing.

If leaseholders are going to make a financial commitment worth potentially $150 billion, Wenzel said, “We ought to be able to take out that one form of uncertainty.”

As far as I know, that’s the first time the company has specified a period of time. Wenzel added that Conoco was not demanding certainty on oil taxes, despite its opposition to the recent production tax increase. He said he did not have a specific gas tax rate in mind, or even a specific tax structure, asking instead to “find that balance that’ll make this thing work.”

The hearing turned out to be fairly charged, with some tense moments between lawmakers and Wenzel, lawmakers and the administration, and even among lawmakers on the committee.

Those documents prepared by the administration ended up playing a big role — some lawmakers criticized what the papers said and how they were presented, while others used them as a basis for questions to Wenzel.