Enbridge CEO gives edge to Alaska gas in race to market

Gary Park

Enbridge, one of Canada’s Big Three oil and gas pipelines, believes the North Slope will beat the Mackenzie Delta in getting gas to market, said company president and chief executive officer Patrick Daniel.

The Calgary-based company is working with both Alaska and Delta producers’ groups and has submitted proposals to both on northern pipeline development.

Daniel said during a webcast July 26 that the recent slump in gas prices has forced northern producers to reassess their timing, but said he is confident gas will move within seven years “most likely from Alaska, followed by Mackenzie Delta gas.”

Until now Enbridge has avoided “getting involved in the controversy over routing, in part at the request of the producers,” Daniel said.

But he said the company, which competes with TransCanada PipeLines and Westcoast Energy, the joint partners in Foothills Pipe Lines, has made a case to the producers that it fully expects to be a participant in any Arctic pipeline.

Enbridge brings to the table its experience as the only Canadian pipeline operating in Canada’s Arctic regions, with its long-time Norman Wells crude line in the central Mackenzie Valley and an Inuvik gas distribution system.

Daniel said the producer groups are “very actively looking at where they’re going to market the gas and at what price and how they’re going to secure those markets.”

He expects the Alaska group will file a routing application in the first or second quarter of 2002, but gave no indication if or when the Delta producers might make their move.