NWT touts Arctic line

GARY PARK

For Petroleum News

Enbridge and TransCanada, Canada’s two premier pipeline companies, have offered only a guarded response to word from the Northwest Territories Industry Minister Dave Ramsay that his government has been talking to unidentified companies about shipping crude oil through the Arctic.

In recent interviews, Ramsay said he and NWT Premier Bob McLeod have been actively presenting their ideas for delivering crude to a tanker port on the Beaufort Sea coast as an alternative to the other plans for pipelines out of Alberta that are bogged down in regulatory delays and court challenges.

He said the Arctic route is now the viable option for shipping crude from the Alberta oil sands, now that the projects which are before regulators and governments have become snarled in resistance to pipelines destined for Canada’s east and west coasts and the U.S. Gulf Coast.

Ramsay said the idea has generated industry interest, but he cautioned that these are early days.

He declined to identify the companies he and McLeod have met with, suggesting that would put them “on a spot.”

For now, the goal is to “get folks to look at different scenarios,” Ramsay said.

Enbridge, while confirming it has met with Ramsay, also noted that it “regularly engages with various communities and stakeholders, including governments” on business opportunities.

Currently, Enbridge operates the only crude pipeline out of the NWT, but its 530-mile link from Imperial Oil’s Norman Wells oil field to Zama in northern Alberta is running at only 20 percent of capacity because of declining production.

TransCanada would not be drawn into public discussion on the Arctic proposal, saying it does not divulge potential business opportunities.

It said the details of any projects linked to its pipeline network would only be disclosed “once they become more certain.”

Ramsay said the North could increasingly become a viable option if TransCanada’s Keystone XL and Energy East and Enbridge’s Northern Gateway are unable to overcome their opposition and enter the construction phase.

Energy and Arctic consultant Doug Matthews told The Canadian Press news agency that a pipeline to carry oil sands crude down the Mackenzie River Valley would be a tough sell to aboriginal communities, most of which are partners in the shelved Mackenzie Gas Project.

Without ruling out an Arctic crude pipeline, he said such a proposal would be “challenging.”