Mac gas line faces new delay

Another delay is in store for the Mackenzie Gas Project, adding to the foot dragging that has already been identified as one of the major possible causes of rising costs, which could spell the project’s undoing.

The Joint Review Panel, charged with examining the environmental and social aspects of the C$16.2 billion project, said it wants even more time to wrap up its work.

The panel said it needs to hear from intervenors following the filing of a motion by the Sierra Club and the World Wildlife Fund, who are seeking to widen the regulatory hearings beyond the immediate project to study the cumulative impacts of gas development in the Mackenzie Valley of the Northwest Territories.

Earlier delays have included a Federal Court of Canada ruling, ordering that the Dene Tha’ First Nation of northern Alberta should be part of the review.

The panel’s next hearings are in Inuvik, July 9-11.

Initially, the panel was supposed to complete its hearing in November 2006, but that target could now be missed by almost a year, delaying the panel’s recommendations until spring 2008 and the National Energy Board’s final report to late 2008 or 2009.

If the project is still alive, which assumes a fiscal agreement between the Imperial Oil-led consortium and the Canadian government, the industry partners will probably need a year to weigh the regulatory decisions and make corporate decisions.

That puts extreme pressure on the consortium to meet NEB conditions that set a deadline of Dec. 31, 2010, to start construction or lose the approval certificate.

—Gary Park