Inuvik (Aug 15/03) - A delegation of senior energy executives toured the Mackenzie Delta last week and dropped of a big, fat cheque just before they left.

ConocoPhillips executives flew into town to visit with regional government leaders, education and industry professionals here and made a $10,000 donation towards the new family centre.

Peter Hunt, ConocoPhillips manger of public affairs, said the donation will go towards training staff for the new facility.

"We'd rather see the money go into some training than into bricks and mortar," Hunt said.

The Parsons Lake gas field, which holds an estimated 1.8 trillion cubic feet of gas, is jointly owned by ConocoPhillips Canada (75 per cent) and ExxonMobil Canada (25 per cent).

Part of the reason for the visit was that ConocoPhillips Canada President Henry Sykes and Houston-based Tom Knudson, senior vice-president, had never been to the Mackenzie Delta in the summer and had promised to visit this year.

Hunt also said that this was also the first trip to Inuvik for Glen Bishop, the new vice-president of Northern development. Bishop is responsible for the significant discovery at ConocoPhillips' Parsons Lake site.

Hunt said the company has set the North as a priority and they have created the new position to oversee the new development occurring here.

"It's an indication of the potential we see for development in the North," Hunt said.

They met with Fred Carmichael, president of the Gwich'in Tribal Council, and Nellie Cournoyea, chair and CEO of the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation, as well as representatives from Aurora College, and industry training people.

"We over-flew the possible site of the Inuvik gas plant and stopped down at Parsons Lake," he said.

The delegation stopped for lunch in Tuktoyaktuk, where they had lunch with elders and town councillors.

On the way back, they flew the route the proposed pipeline will take through the Delta.

Now that the Preliminary Information Package (PIP) has been filed, Hunt says the momentum seems to be building for the project.

"There is a real feeling now, that the project has wheels and is moving forward," he said. "I noticed a sense of greater optimism; there's a whole energy level that has ratcheted up a notch."

The feeling they got from the people they met with is that the next step is to lay out the required needs from the workforce here, and identifying the contracts, training and skill sets that will be needed.

"We'll be talking to our partners here in Calgary to put that in motion," he said.