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Deh Cho continue hold-out status in Mackenzie Valley Insist on resource sharing and environmental assessment deals as conditions of support for pipeline; not ready to turn control of project over to producers Gary Park PNA Canadian Correspondent
As the pace of planning for Mackenzie Delta gas development quickens so does the desire to bring a lone holdout aboriginal community into the fold.
But the Deh Cho First Nations, with 4,000 members, is adamant that it must have a resource-sharing agreement that would allow it to charge a fee for pipeline construction through traditional lands and a role in the environmental assessment process.
With such a deal in place, the Deh Cho would “roll out the red carpet,” Chief Mike Nadli told an Arctic Gas Symposium in Calgary this month.
For now, the Deh Cho will have no part of giving the Delta producers — Imperial Oil Ltd., Conoco Canada Ltd., Shell Canada Ltd. and ExxonMobil Canada — the unfettered right to deliver gas along the Mackenzie Valley.
Deh Cho ancestral lands cover about 40 percent of the proposed pipeline right of way, embracing a vast chunk of the Northwest Territories’ southwestern corner, including the producing Fort Liard gas field. Five of six groups in agreement The Deh Cho angered their former Dene Nation allies, who support the Mackenzie Valley Aboriginal Pipeline Corp. in the memorandum of understanding signed last October with Delta producers that opens the way for the Mackenzie Valley Aboriginal Pipeline to become a one-third equity partner in the pipeline.
The understanding, with five of six aboriginal regions in the Northwest Territories, also deals with education, training, employment and business opportunities; route selection; land access; support through the regulatory process; environmental assessments; and abandonment.
Nadli conceded at the conference that the resource-sharing deal could generate billions of dollars worth of potential oil and gas revenues on Deh Cho territory and would finally allow the aboriginals to end their financial dependence on governments.
Dennie Lennie, chairman of the Inuvialuit Development Corp., said his community solidly backs the Mackenzie Valley Aboriginal Pipeline ownership plan that would require federal government backing, such as loan guarantees, to raise about C$1 billion and secure the aboriginal stake.
The Mackenzie Valley Aboriginal Pipeline is also expected to negotiate gas supplies from producers outside the Delta consortium to deliver volumes of 400 million to 550 million cubic feet per day into the pipeline. Opposition to ArctiGas In addition, the Mackenzie Valley Aboriginal Pipeline must agree not to align itself with rival projects, such as the C$12.1 billion ArctiGas Resources Corp. northern route scheme, linking the North Slope and Delta basins with a line under the Beaufort Sea.
ArctiGas is continuing its pitch to the Gwich’in, Sahtu Dene, Metis and Deh Cho to become shareholders and eventually owners of a pipeline through their territories.
In a recent speech, aboriginal attorney Richard Hardy said ArctiGas is ready, among other things, to make cash advances to the aboriginal landowners as they sign land access agreements and payments of C$100 million a year once a pipeline is fully operating.
He urged aboriginal leaders to ignore the “doomsayers” who warn that oil and gas development has no future in the Northwest Territories unless they “lay down” for the Delta producers.
Hardy described the memorandum signed by the Mackenzie Valley Aboriginal Pipeline as a “mistake” and insisted the ArctiGas project would generate far higher revenues for aboriginals than a Mackenzie Valley pipeline.
For Nadli, the chance to derive benefits from a pipeline are a once-in-a-lifetime prospect that he won’t bargain away.
In speeches and interviews, he has said a pipeline could reduce chronic unemployment in the Northwest Territories and persuade young people to seek work in their home area.
The Deh Cho determination to get a fair return on economic investments is reflected in the fact that it is the only Mackenzie Valley First Nation not to have settled a land claim with the federal government.
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