Mackenzie Gas Project to go before joint review panel

Gary Park

Petroleum News Calgary correspondent

Canada’s Indian and Northern Affairs Minister Andy Mitchell has opened the door for a joint review panel to conduct an environmental impact review of the C$4 billion Mackenzie Valley natural gas pipeline. He approved a request from the Mackenzie Valley Environmental Impact Review Board to enter into an agreement with federal Environment Minister David Anderson to set up the panel.

Next, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency and the Inuvialuit Game Council will settle on the draft terms of reference for the developer’s environmental impact statement and the draft joint review panel agreement. The decision to order a panel review flowed from concerns raised at public meetings in Norman Wells, Inuvik and Fort Simpson along the proposed pipeline route in the Northwest Territories. The issues which attracted most concern were: Economic and infrastructure; social and cultural; and cumulative effects.

The environmental review board decided that the review should include all facilities and activities in the three anchor gas fields on the Mackenzie Delta and a central gas processing plant.

It should also cover a 1.9 billion cubic foot per day pipeline and the extension of the Alberta transmission system to link up with the Mackenzie pipeline.