Alaska is pursuing foreign investors for its oil and gas industry, hoping to advance recent discoveries while struggling to compete with lower-cost shale projects and reverse a decades-long output decline. FILE PHOTO: The sun sets behind an oil drilling rig in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska on March 17, 2011. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson/File Photo Sovereign wealth funds, banks and state-owned energy companies have met with Alaskan officials, John Hendrix, chief energy adviser to Alaska Governor Bill Walker said in an interview. China Investment Corp (CIC) and state-owned Chinese energy company Sinopec held talks with state officials last month, he said. Alaskan crude production has fallen by three-quarters since 1988, a decline that has contributed to budget deficits and jeopardized the operation of the Trans-Alaska Oil Pipeline, which runs from the North Slope to the southern port of Valdez. This year, a state budget shortfall led the state to withhold […]