Jason Unrau
Northern News Services
Wednesday, May 09, 2007

YELLOWKNIFE - Industry Minister Brendan Bell was in Texas last week touting the Mackenzie Valley pipeline as a conduit for natural gas from Alaska's North Slope.

"I'm not saying I'm advocating over the top, but I am saying that once Mackenzie's in the ground, there are more options for Alaska to then consider," Bell was quoted in the Financial Post last week after an address he made at an Offshore Technology Conference in Houston.

But it will take more than a speaking engagement to convince Alaska legislators who have advocated building a separate line and enacted a law prohibiting its North Slope gas from being shipped via the Mackenzie Valley pipeline.

Gas volumes are also a consideration. The proposed pipeline is designed to ship between 1.2 and 1.8 billion cubic feet per day from three anchor fields in the Beaufort Delta, estimated to contain six trillion cubic feet of gas. Alaska's North Slope reserves are estimated at 35 trillion cubic feet and its proposed pipeline capable of four to five billion cubic feet per day capacity.

Both Imperial Oil, lead proponent of the Mackenzie pipeline, and the Aboriginal Pipeline Group, a one-third owner of the proposed pipeline, have said that any development of a competing Alaska natural gas pipeline poses a threat to the Mackenzie pipeline.

While some industry pundits say the demand for natural gas would eventually demand both projects, labour demands and necessary materials required makes it impossible to construct the two simultaneously.