ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - The recent plunge in world oil prices will alter Alaska’ month-old forecast that predicts North Slope crude prices will be well above $70 a barrel through 2010, state officials said Thursday.

Oil-market and general economic volatility have already made obsolete the state’s prediction, released last month, that oil prices would average $77.66 a barrel in the current fiscal year and $74.41 a barrel in fiscal 2010, state Revenue Commissioner Pat Galvin told a legislative committee.
Other forecasters have already adjusted their predictions downward, Galvin told the state House Finance Committee. “You would expect us to also significantly reduce our expectations,” he told the committee, which was meeting in the state capitol in Juneau.
However, Galvin and other officials from his department did not present a revised price forecast Thursday. That information will come in a few days, he told the committee.
“It’s our intent to provide you with our current thinking for the current year within a week,” he said. Sometime after that, there will be a revision to the forecast for fiscal 2010, he said.
Market volatility made the most recent revenue forecast especially difficult, Galvin said.
Prices for North Slope crude reached a record $144.59 on July 3, but fell dramatically over the fall. The price decline was especially precipitous in October, precisely the time the Department of Revenue was crafting its detailed forecast, he said.
The forecast, released Dec. 9, also predicted that North Slope crude production would average 689,000 barrels per day in the current fiscal year and drop to 665,000 bpd in the next fiscal year, continuing a steady decline in the state’s output, Galvin said.
Based on the Department of Revenue’s official forecast, Gov. Sarah Palin on Dec. 15 proposed a fiscal 2010 budget that assumed a $388.7 million surplus.
Alaska’s fiscal year starts each July 1.