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Twisting arms, bending ears NWT Industry Minister meets with Alaska representatives as he leans toward pipeline from Canada to Valdez as best hope Gary Park For Petroleum News
Northwest Territories Industry Minister Dave Ramsay is a crusader on a mission these days.
He is spreading the word across North America that his government is ready to pull out the stops to facilitate the movement of crude oil and natural gas to domestic markets and to tidewater for shipment to foreign markets.
As a result, Ramsay is buttonholing anyone who will listen to his argument and, better still, join him in exploring the feasibility and the costs of building the infrastructure.
And among those in his crosshairs are Alaska’s lawmakers, most recently the state’s representatives on Capitol Hill.
He spent the best part of the first week of March prowling the corridors and meeting rooms in Washington, D.C., pitching his ideas in particular to Alaska’s Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan and Congressman Donald Young.
Ramsay is not sure what progress he is making, but is confident his campaign “is getting some place. ... Although there’s always more work to do, in the very near future I think you’ll see this whole concept gain some more momentum and then we’ll see where it leads.”
“Right now all we’re seeing is other (infrastructure) projects running into opposition and hurdles,” he told Petroleum News, suggesting that what he has put on the table “might be a solution. Certainly, if you don’t start somewhere you’re not going to get anywhere.”
Infrastructure deficit What drives Ramsay is the realization that the NWT has an infrastructure deficit that is keeping resources locked in the ground.
NWT Premier Bob McLeod operates in tandem with Ramsay, telling a recent audience in Ottawa that “our resources are going untapped because we lack the roads, airports, sea ports and other infrastructure to get them to market.
“For years, we have seen our resource potential lie dormant and undeveloped, our business idle and economy stifled while we wait for the promised boom that is always coming but has yet to arrive,” McLeod said.
Ramsay builds his case around the oil and gas reserves in the Deh Cho, Central Mackenzie Valley, Mackenzie Delta and Beaufort Sea that are estimated at 7 billion barrels of oil and 80 trillion cubic feet of gas.
The same companies involved in those discoveries have hundreds of millions of dollars invested in the Central Mackenzie Valley and billions of dollars in Arctic work commitments, waiting for a reason to start exploration, he said.
Alberta searching for alternative routes That treasure trove is getting augmented by Alberta’s search for alternative routes to market, having seen progress on four major pipelines from the oil sands stonewalled, with the odds now heavily stacked against Enbridge’s Northern Gateway and TransCanada’s Keystone XL.
Ramsay is suggesting two options - a pipeline from Alberta down the Mackenzie River to a deepwater port at Tuktoyaktuk, or a pipeline from the Mackenzie across the Yukon and Alaska to Valdez.
“Any chance I get to raise these ideas, whether it’s through Tuk or Alaska, I bring it up. I don’t miss a chance,” he said.
He’s now suggesting that Alaska “makes the most sense (because Valdez offers a year-round port). We haven’t seen the economics and I’m no pipeline expert, but I know this is potentially one way to get oil out.”
Ramsay said the NWT’s hope is for a joint venture with Alberta, the Yukon and Alaska to advance the gathering of information on economics and “move forward.”
He said NWT and Alaska government officials have been working on preliminary data collection, with Alberta showing strong interest that could include an early visit to the NWT by Premier Jim Prentice.
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