Thorunn Howatt
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Sep 24/01) - People living along the proposed Mackenzie Valley pipeline route continue to be wooed by perspective pipeline builders, but the government of the Northwest Territories continues to back the first-to-the-table Aboriginal Pipeline Group.

"We have supported the Aboriginal Pipeline Group 100 per cent because that is a group that was collectively put together to negotiate aboriginal ownership of a pipeline," said NWT Minister of Resources Joe Handley.

"We do not support these other splinter groups that have been created. If we started supporting everybody then there would be no focus to this," he said.

Last week the Arcticgas Resources Corporation offered each of the six regions up to $50,000 to pay for legal and technical expertise costs tied to pipeline proposal investigation.

Handley described the move as a "cheap way to try to buy support."

If regions need help paying for expertise capacity, the government would like to do it through the Aboriginal Pipeline Group (APG).

"I'd rather give the money to APG then they could apply to APG for their capacity support," said Handley.

Groups could also apply to the Mackenzie Valley pipeline co-ordinating committee, said Handley.

"Through that communities could be eligible," he said.

About $500,000 was made available through the maximizing Northern employment program to provide support to communities.

Five of the six regions along the proposed route have already signed a memorandum of understanding that would give them up to a one-third ownership in a pipeline that would take Northern gas from a facility located near Inuvik to Alberta.

The deal ties them to a consortium calling itself the Mackenzie Delta Gas Producers. The producer group is made up of Imperial Oil Resources Ventures Limited, Shell Canada Resources, Exxonmobil Canada and Gulf, (now Conoco).

To date the memorandum has not been signed by members of the producers group.

"We are still working our way through various aspects of our feasibility study," said Hart Searle, spokesman for the producer group. "Not the least of which is trying to further the business relationship with the aboriginal community."

The producers are studying the Deh Cho resolution put forward at the recent Wrigley assembly.

The Arctic Resources Corporation wants to build a pipeline that stretches from Alaska's Prudhoe Bay, over to the Mackenzie Delta and then south to Alberta. They propose to finance the project by 100 per cent debt or selling revenue bonds.

"We have invited aboriginal land groups to take up equity positions in the corporation that will have title to the pipeline," said Arcticgas Resources spokesperson Harvie Andre. The corporation has been named the Northern Route Gas Pipeline Corporation.

"We've been talking to aboriginal groups in this regard for some time now. The Ernie MacDonald Land Corporation has signed up," he said, adding other groups have expressed interest but found the investigation process too expensive.

"We said let us allocate up to $50,000 per group for legal fees," said Andre. "This advance would be by way of a loan repayable through future revenues from the pipeline."

Arcticgas is asking takers to sign a framework agreement and a second step, worth another $50,000, for the signing of what Andre calls a program administration agreement. To date Arcticgas Resources has no producers interested in sending gas down its proposed pipe.

Since the American terrorist tragedy, though, some feel a pipeline decision from the United States is imminent.

"There is a possibility that the Americans get struck stupid and subsidize an Alaska Highway line as the only route," said Andre, speaking of a line that would run south from Prudhoe Bay following the Alaska Highway.

Last week, Foothills Pipe Lines released results of a study comparing three routes: the Mackenzie Valley as suggested by the APG, the Prudhoe Bay to Alberta supported by Arcticgas and the Alaska supported Alaska Highway route.

Foothills holds the pipeline right-of-way following the Alaska Highway. It says building both the Alaska highway route and the Mackenzie Delta route is cheaper than Arcticgas's over-the-top route.