|
Two Arctic pipelines better than one, says Westcoast executive Companies favor Alaska Highway project for the initial route, with a Mackenzie Valley line to proceed in conjunction with market demand and additional reserves Gary Park PNA Canadian Correspondent
Westcoast Energy and TransCanada PipeLines are mounting a campaign to get the best of both worlds, by arguing for two pipelines from the U.S. and Canadian Arctic.
Stephen Bart, northern development manager for Vancouver-based Westcoast, told a Calgary conference there is no economic benefit to a combined Alaska-Mackenzie Delta project.
“Here’s a case where two is better than one,” he said. “Let’s get the first pipeline built and get gas flowing.”
With that breakthrough, development of the Prudhoe Bay and Mackenzie Delta reserves could be advanced as market demand brought additional supplies on line, Bart said.
“We need infrastructure in place to spur that extra development activity,” he said.
Westcoast and TransCanada are joint owners of Foothills Pipe Lines, which has U.S. and Canadian regulatory and government approval to build the Alaska Highway link from the North Slope across Alaska and the Yukon to connect in central Alberta with its existing export pipeline.
They are also front-runners in any plan to build a stand-alone Canadian pipeline from the Mackenzie Delta. Easy way first Bart said the Alaska Highway option is the obvious first choice as the “quickest, most economical and most environmentally benign” method to ship Alaska gas to the Lower 48.
He said any connection from Prudhoe Bay to the Mackenzie Delta is technically possible, but bound to attract international protests on behalf of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
In addition, a route under the shallow waters of the Beaufort Sea would probably require two lines to avoid the risk of a prolonged winter shutdown from any pipeline rupture.
Bart said Westcoast and TransCanada regard a corridor from the Mackenzie Delta to a major pipeline in the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin as the best, although timing and cost — tentatively estimated at almost C$4 billion — are questionable.
He said more precise estimates on timing and cost should await decisions by a coalition of producers, northern communities and pipeline companies.
Bart said much work must also be done to develop a commercial reality that satisfies the demands of aboriginal communities along the Mackenzie Valley route.
That requires agreement on a regulatory regime in the Northwest Territories and the settlement of unresolved aboriginal land claims.
“With the assistance of a harmonized regulatory process, oil and gas will factor very large in the economic development of the north,” he said.
| 