Terry Halifax
Northern News Services

Inuvik (May 24/02) - An engineering contract to build a Mackenzie Valley pipeline was awarded to Calgary-based COLTKBR last week.

The company is a joint venture between Colt Engineering Corp. and KBR, a subsidiary of Halliburton.

The contract will detail the design and construction of the pipeline from three gas production facilities, to a compression facility in Inuvik and piped 500 km to Norman Wells to a liquid recovery facility.

From there, the gas will be compressed again and sent 800 km to Northern Alberta.

Vice President of Business Development with COLTKBR Russ Grant says the company has been working with Imperial on feasibility studies for two years and they are quite familiar with what's involved.

"We have a basis of understanding of the project and much of our team has been exposed to this project before," Grant said.

He says the contract should take the company "two to three years," to complete and says their team is very excited about getting started.

"It certainly is a significant contract for us and we're tickled to be working on it," he said.

Imperial spokesperson Hart Searle said the company came in with the best price and met all of their criteria in their bid. Searle wouldn't comment as to the dollar amount attached to the project, but they have estimated costs around $250 million for this phase of the project. Most of that money will go into engineering.

"Given the scope of the work that ColtKVR will be undertaking within this phase, I think the contract awarded represents a fair portion of that $200 to $250 million," Searle said. "They have a lot of work to do."

That work will include determining what size pipe is used. Searle says they have not determined the diameter of the pipe yet.

"Some of the work that they do will help get a better definition of what will be required," he said.

"We need to get some work done and some better definition in the engineering side before we get a range for that."

Searle said the producer group will be in the Deh Cho for community consultation on May 27-30, but there are no confirmed dates yet on a Delta visit.