Resource railroads on the table in Alaska, Alberta

Gary Park

Petroleum News Calgary correspondent

Multi-billion dollar resource-based railroads are getting a fresh airing in both Alaska and Alberta.

Alaska Gov. Frank Murkowski has suggested an Alaska Highway gas pipeline opens the door to a railway from Alaska through the Yukon to British Columbia.

With that decades-long dream being brought back to life in Alaska, Alberta Premier Ralph Klein has revived talk of a railroad to serve the oil sands region of northern Alberta.

“This is not pie-in-the-sky,” he said March 17. “This could be a gold mine.”

Klein said his government, CN Rail, oil sands producers and municipalities are now examining the feasibility of a 265-mile link from the heavy-equipment staging area at Nisku, near Edmonton, to the oil sands “capital” of Fort McMurray.

He said the heavy equipment moving north “really ties up highways and causes safety problems.”

A railroad would “not only benefit the oil sands ... it could benefit the movement of people, freeing up the highways.”

With the prospect of C$50 billion in oil sands investment over the next 25 years, the Fort McMurray area is of “huge economic impact and huge economic significance.”

A spokesman for CN Rail said his company has participated in early talks and a spokesman for Syncrude Canada said the oil sands consortium is interested in exploring the idea.