Alberta eager to aid flow of Arctic gas; Smith promises to untangle regulatory knots

Gary Park

Petroleum News Calgary correspondent

Prodded by industry leaders, the Alberta government is planning to unveil regulatory changes that will offer easier access to its natural gas pipelines by out-of-province suppliers.

Energy Minister Murray Smith said the streamlining will apply to interested parties in Alaska, the Northwest Territories and British Columbia.

Speaking to conferences over the final quarter of 2003, he pledged efforts by the government to work with industry in developing a single-window approval process.

The objective will be to aid the efforts of suppliers to move gas from the North Slope and Mackenzie Delta to the Lower 48 states, Smith said.

Patrick Daniel, chief executive officer of Enbridge, made a vigorous case for streamlining approvals and removing barriers, which he has described as the “Achilles heel of gas development.”

Daniel said a joint review process by Canada’s National Energy Board and the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for the proposed Alaska Highway project would help accelerate northern development.

He also suggested that the 13 agencies and governments involved in the Mackenzie Valley pipeline opens the door for special interest groups to raise issues that are not necessarily relevant to the permitting and facilities issues.

Smith acknowledged the current difficulties “for people to walk through the regulatory maze” in Alberta, involving the provincial energy and environment departments and the Energy and Utilities Board.

To overcome that confusion, the government commissioned a former deputy energy minister to look for regulations that could be eliminated.

He said the Energy and Utilities Board has “very good jurisdictional expertise in Alberta and we can tie in through commercial agreements these tie-ins with the Alberta network.”