To put the current economic imbalance between Alaskans and our producers in perspective, one need only compare Alaska’s current economic circumstances with ConocoPhillips’ current economic circumstances.
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In 2018, while Alaska’s production revenues were $3.80 per barrel, ConocoPhillips’ profits were $26 per barrel from the sale of our oil. In fact, ConocoPhillips’ per-barrel profits in Alaska were higher than almost anywhere in the world.
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In 2016 & 2017, while Alaska’s production revenues were net negative, ConocoPhillips’ profits were $1.8 billion from its Alaskan operations. As another point of reference, during this same period, ConocoPhillips lost $4.6 billion from its Lower-48 operations.
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In 2018, while Alaska cut permanent fund dividends to Alaskans, ConocoPhillips raised its dividends twice to its shareholders.
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In 2018, while Alaska spent down its savings and made drastic cuts to the state’s budget and to our permanent fund dividends to make ends meet, ConocoPhillips paid $4.4 billion for stock repurchases and dividends, received Board authorization to repurchase an additional $9 billion of stock in the future, and paid down $4.7 billion in debt (18 months ahead of plan).
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While Alaska’s credit ratings have been downgraded, ConocoPhillips’ credit ratings from Fitch, Moody’s, and Standard & Poors’ have been upgraded.
From virtually any perspective, there is currently no economic balance between how well Alaska is doing from the sale of our oil compared with how well our producers are doing. Alaskans are getting “shortchanged” more than ever before.
The Fair Share Act will increase our share by roughly $1 billion. This is more than fair to the producers and will permit them to make more profit from the sale of our oil than from almost anywhere else on earth. This will result in Alaskans again getting about 26 percent of the gross revenues. This is still well less than what Alaskans received prior to SB21.