Daniel MacIsaac
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Nov 26/99) - Nellie Cornoyea says it should be an exciting winter.

Chair and chief executive officer of the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation, Cornoyea was speaking last week about the state of the renewed interest in gas and oil exploration in the region.

"Right now, Petro-Canada is getting ready to do seismic drilling," she said, "and will go through the environmental regulatory regime and put the project together."

Cornoyea said the renewed interest came in the form of numbers late last month, when Petro-Canada and Poco Petroleums Ltd. made a successful bid totalling some $185 million to carry out exploration activities over the next five years on four parcels of land northwest of Inuvik. She said the Schlumberger company has arranged to carry out Petro-Canada's seismic testing and that drilling could begin early next year.

She said, meanwhile, the IRC is working on the employee benefits that will result from the renewed activity.

"You've got to evaluate where the industry is today and set up terms and conditions according to the knowledge base," she said.

Cornoyea said the big difference in oil and gas this time around is that the land-claim settlement is in place but she added that this hasn't deterred southern companies.

"The only thing that would scare them off is if the bottom hits on oil and gas prices," she said. "All the companies have been very co-operative, but some don't know what they're going to do on Crown lands yet."

Cornoyea said the companies would proceed to get as much work done as they can before the season ends around mid-April, and that planning for the following season would resume in the summer.

"This is just the beginning," she said.