Aboriginals, industry form Mackenzie joint venture to pursue gasline work

Gary Park

Progress on the Mackenzie Gas Project has led to a ground-breaking joint-venture by six major industrial firms and an aboriginal corporation to chase contracts on the planned Mackenzie Valley pipeline.

Led by Calgary-based midstream services firm Flint Energy Services and the Gwich’in Development Corp., the Mackenzie Aboriginal Corp. is described as a “one-stop service for a complete suite of construction-related services.”

A 51 percent stake in Mackenzie Aboriginal Corp. will be held by the Gwich’in, who teamed up with “high-caliber contractors” to give the corporation a chance to be a competitive bidder for Mackenzie contracts, said Gwich’in Development Corp. President Fred Carmichael.

The Mackenzie Aboriginal Corp. hopes other aboriginal groups will join the venture so that aboriginals can “benefit to the fullest extent possible” from the C$7 billion project, he said. Brian Butlin, president and chief executive officer of Flint, said his firm welcomed the opportunity to work with aboriginal communities to pursue “significant construction opportunities” related to the pipeline.

Calgary-based Flint has 4,500 employees in 41 locations across Western Canada and the United States.

The other industry partners are Ledcor Industries, Midwest Management, North American Pipeline, Penstar Energy Services and Peter Kiewit Sons.

The Gwich’in Settlement Area in the Northwest Territories stretches over a vast area from the Mackenzie Delta to below the Arctic Circle and is now the subject of self-government negotiations with the Canadian government.

The Gwich’in along with the Inuvialuit and Sahtu are full partners in the Aboriginal Pipeline Group, which hopes to take a one-third equity holding in the pipeline.

A combined total of 7,000 Gwich’in people occupy an area from the Northwest Territories across the Canada-U.S. border into northeastern Alaska.