Other members of the sponsor group are Cook Inlet Region, an Alaska native corporation, and Pacific Star Energy, a consortium including Alaska native corporations. The group is aiming at a Dec 31, 2010, start-up date for the pipeline, which would run 745 miles from the North Slope near Prudhoe Bay southward to the Alaska/Yukon border near Beaver Creek. The 48-inch-diameter line would have initial design capacity of 4.5 Bcf/d.

At the Canadian border, the pipeline would connect with a line to be built either by TransCanada's Foothills Pipe Lines subsidiary or another developer. Bob Sluder, president of MidAmerican unit Kern River Gas Transmission, has been named president of MEHC Alaska Gas Transmission. MidAmerican also owns Northern Natural Gas and says it is the second-largest US gas transmission company, based on miles of pipeline. In a statement, Buffett, whose Berkshire Hathaway firm owns 80% of MidAmerican Energy, said "the importance of getting the stranded Alaskan natural gas to the Lower-48 United States cannot be overemphasized." MidAmerican Chairman and CEO David Sokol said the company believes that "by the end of this decade Alaskan gas will begin to play a critical role in meeting North American gas demand." The first step for the sponsors is to win a determination by the state that the pipeline is a "qualified project" under the state statute and the project backers are a "qualified sponsor group."