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Nova Gas line to northwestern Alberta OK’d but only after delays
Gary Park for Petroleum News
Without much fanfare, the Canadian government delivered victory to a full array of participants and customers when it approved a natural gas pipeline extension in northwestern Alberta.
The C$2.3 billion project by Nova Gas Transmission Ltd., NGTL, a wholly owned unit of TC Energy, will add 215 miles of new pipeline from west of Red Deer to Grande Prairie, creating 5,500 construction jobs for Indigenous and non-Indigenous workers, and carrying 3.5 billion cubic feet per day to residential consumers, power producers who are switching from coal to gas-fired plants and petrochemical companies relying on gas for their feedstock.
The project, a key component of NGTL’s C$9.9 billion infrastructure program, also gives a badly needed lift to gas producers who have been struggling to build their markets.
Full summer of delay The only source of grumbling came from the Alberta government, which condemned federal delays that cost a full summer construction season.
“Despite months of delay, we are pleased the federal government has approved this key project, which will create significant economic benefits and good jobs ... at a time they are needed the most,” said Alberta Energy Minister Sonya Savage.
She said the bulk of construction is “not expected to get underway until 2021.” The scheduled in-service date ranges from 2021 to 2022.
The approval came with 35 conditions, notably the restoration of 9,500 acres of caribou habitat, an area 30 times the size of the habitat affected by the pipeline.
Not the final word? But pro-pipeline factions know that approvals from the highest level of government and courts are seldom the final word for pipeline projects.
After a quiet period during the past eight months of a ban on protests at energy construction sites under COVID-19 regulations there was a brief flare-up at the long-delayed Trans Mountain crude bitumen pipeline expansion from Alberta to Vancouver.
It resulted in arrests of nine people attempting to stop work in defiance of a court injunction and claiming to represent the will of Tk’emlups te Secwempec First Nation, which has a C$3 million mutual benefits agreement with Trans Mountain.
Tk’emlups Chief Rosanne Casimir said First Nation elders and members were not part of the protest.
“The area Trans Mountain is working in is our area of responsibility. No one else has the right to speak on our behalf,” she said.
But the opposition reinforced the view that serious resistance lies ahead for Trans Mountain as pipeline work moves into the Greater Vancouver region.
- GARY PARK
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