Today wrapped up the second day of the Industry Outlook Forum at the Kenai Challenger Center. The overall feeling from speakers was that oil, gas, and energy fields on the Kenai Peninsula are making exciting steps forward and everyone can gain something.
CH2MHILL’s Vice President of Program and Project Development Bryan Clemenz attended both days.
Clemenz: “Well I think we had quite a number of good speakers, all of them are interest to CH2MHILL as we provide a lot of services across the entire spectrum of project development for a lot of different market sectors.”
Clemenz also said that he has attended about four other forums like this one in the last four years and it seems to be the most “comprehensive, diverse and promising economic forum that he had seen in Kenai”.
One of today’s speakers was Hilcorp’s Senior Vice President John Barnes, who said that Cook Inlet oil production is almost back up to the same rate as it was in 2006.
Seward City Council Member Dale Butts also attended both days and said that he was sent to review how the projects in Seward that tie into the oil and gas industry can benefit the whole Kenai Peninsula and Alaska.
Butts: “A lot of what we’re doing in Seward too with port expansion and things like this, we’re actually able to support the oil and gas industry. With our deep water port, access to the road system, and to the rail system there too, that’s one of the bigger key things that Seward really plays in the oil and gas. We still have great resources; fishing, our people are our big resource there that we have. AVTEC for the training side of it for all the oil and gas jobs we have here.”
Aside from speakers and presentations the forum also had a few booths from various vendors and associations there to inform.
Grassroots Advocacy Coordinator for the Alaska Support Industry Alliance Jake Falldorf spoke about why he was encouraging people to register to vote.
Falldorf: “So what we’re doing is making sure that SB-21 has the time to do what it was designed to do which could take a decade, it’s a bill that’s designed for a long term play. And it’s not even a year old now and there’s already an attempt to repeal it.”
Overall the Alliance’s Director of Communications Renee Limoge Reeve said she was very happy with how successful the two days have been.