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Many Alaskans don't know it, but there's a long, 30-year history to TransCanada Corp.'s interest in Alaska natural gas.

From the 1970s on, the Calgary-based company has been part of almost every effort to bring the Alaska gas project to reality, and has shared in the disappointments when previous projects failed to move forward.

TransCanada's key executives have a lot of history with Alaska gas, too. Tony Palmer, who heads the company's latest initiative, has been focused on Alaska since 2001. Along with overcoming commercial obstacles, Palmer has guided the company through Alaska's political minefields.

The stars may finally be aligning for Alaska gas and TransCanada. There's momentum behind a project to connect North Slope natural gas to a pipeline hub in Alberta where it can be sold to the Lower 48. And while it's currently uncertain just who will be in a consortium to develop this mega-project, TransCanada seems almost certain to be included and to play a critical role.

That's partly because the pipeline company has persuaded one key club members holding North Slope gas, ExxonMobil Corp., to join it in preparing for a planned 2010 open season.

ExxonMobil has clout with BP and ConocoPhillips, the two other major gas owners who are now leading Denali, a separate company that aims to build a gas pipeline.

All the work is now focused on the 2010 open season, which is when TransCanada will have more detailed cost estimates and will solicit customers to ship gas. Palmer says he expects bids to be made for capacity in the pipeline, but that those bids will be conditioned on issues to be resolved, issues such as the need to negotiate fiscal terms with the state.

Long time coming

The company was originally one of the members of the Arctic Gas consortium, a group of U.S. and Canadian pipeline and gas distribution companies that started work on developing a transportation system to move Alaska gas soon after the trans-Alaska oil pipeline was competed in 1977.

The route of that pipeline was east from Prudhoe Bay across what is now the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Obtaining passage for a pipeline at the time would have been easier because the refuge was merely a wildlife range.

The initiative failed when Canada's government blocked permits to build the pipeline down the Mackenzie River Valley because of unresolved aboriginal land claims.

When a new consortium came together in the 1990s, led by Northwest Energy, a U.S. gas distribution company based in Utah, Foothills Pipe Lines (now TransCanada) became a part of that.

A new route was proposed: south from Prudhoe Bay to Interior Alaska and southeast into Canada along the Alaska Highway, basically the same route now proposed.

The group spent hundreds of millions of dollars, with Foothills paying its share. The initiative ultimately failed when deregulation of the U.S. natural gas industry brought about an unexpected surge in gas production and supply, and gas prices fell.

Still, an important part of the Alaska pipeline moved forward, the "pre-build" or southern parts of the system that were originally to carry Alaska and Canadian gas to U.S. markets. They are in business today, owned and operated by TransCanada. If the latest plan for Alaska advances, those pipes may yet carry Alaska gas.

After the 1980s collapse of the Alaska project, TransCanada stayed in the game. The company purchased the rights of its former partners to keep the permits alive and preserve work that had been done.

By 2000, the North Slope gas owners decided that an overland pipeline to the Lower 48 might be worth a new look. TransCanada was there, ready to partner.

Piping to Alaska

Tony Palmer has guided the company's efforts since 2001. Palmer was trained as an economist with a degree from Concordia University in Montreal and worked in the electric power industry in Alberta before joining Foothills Pipe Lines in 1985. TransCanada purchased Foothills in 1994.

Palmer and his wife, Agnes, live in Calgary, where they raised two sons.

Today, Palmer almost lives on airplanes, shuttling back and forth between Canada and Alaska. He spent a good part of the last two summers in Alaska, first engaged with the state of Alaska in its issue of a license to TransCanada to lead the pipeline effort, and last summer in managing the pre-open season work with new partner ExxonMobil.

Things haven't been easy in recent years. When the North Slope producers began their own work on the project, they kept the pipeline company at something of a distance.

There was wide agreement, including among the producers, that a pipeline company like TransCanada, with substantial northern pipeline-building experience, should eventually be part of a team, but not the leader.

Being a junior member of the team is not what TransCanada had in mind. When former Gov. Frank Murkowski solicited proposals in 2005 for a gas pipeline from independent pipeline companies, TransCanada was promptly at the door with a plan to do the project.

The producers persuaded Murkowski to back their approach and TransCanada was out in the cold again. But when Sarah Palin defeated Murkowski and became governor in 2006, her new gas team issued new solicitations. Palin eventually selected TransCanada to receive a set of state financial incentives in return for the pipeline company agreeing to certain state goals, a definitive timeline among them.

Two of the three North Slope gas owners chose to launch their own effort, the Denali project, but earlier this year the third major owner, ExxonMobil, chose to team with TransCanada, a crucial breakthrough for the company.

TransCanada is a far bigger and more diversified company than it was when it first started working on Alaska gas three decades ago. The company has 3,550 employees and owns more than 36,000 miles of pipelines in North America. TransCanada is now building a 2,148-mile crude oil pipeline from Alberta to the U.S. Midwest that will be in operation in early 2010, and an expansion of the project is already proposed.

TransCanada has also diversified into other energy businesses, such as natural gas storage projects and electric power.

A TransCanada subsidiary, ANR Storage Co., is working with Enstar Natural Gas Co. in studying a possible gas storage project in Southcentral Alaska.