The Mackenzie Delta Producers Group has been swamped with responses from natural gas companies who answered an invitation to register their interest in obtaining space on a Mackenzie Valley pipeline.
A one-month open season designed to get an estimate on the number of potential shippers yielded expressions of interest from 20 companies, said a spokesman for Imperial Oil Ltd., the lead partner in the MDPG.
Because of qualifications in the non-binding expressions of interest, he said Imperial will have to meet with all of the producers to get a more reliable fix on the total volumes nominated.
But he said the exercise will help the MDPG to develop flexible plans for handling discoveries over and above the 800 million to 1 billion cubic feet per day expected to come from the Taglu, Parsons Lake and Niglintgak, where proven reserves are currently 5.8 trillion cubic feet.
The 20 companies include the partners in the MDPG — Imperial, Shell Canada Ltd., Conoco Canada Ltd. and ExxonMobil Canada.
Although the others were not identified, they would likely include the Mackenzie Delta Explorers Group, consisting of Petro-Canada, Devon Canada Corp., EnCana Corp., Chevron Canada Resources, Anadarko Canada Corp., Burlington Resources Canada Energy Ltd. and BP Canada Energy Co., who have pledged to spend C$900 million over five years to explore the Delta.
The Mackenzie Valley Aboriginal Pipeline Corp. has a memorandum of understanding with the MDPG that could see the Native group obtain a one-third equity stake in the pipeline by negotiating incremental initial supplies of 400 million to 500 million cubic feet per day.
The MDPG has indicated that it could move from the current project definition phase by mid-2003 and enter the regulatory and approval phase — a process that could take up to four years.
