Guy Quenneville
Northern News Services
Published Monday, December 17, 2007

YELLOWKNIFE - The Mackenzie Gas Project has overcome a significant hurdle in its regulatory process.

The environmental assessment hearings of the Joint Review Panel (JRP) - the regulatory body charged with ensuring the long-gestating project does not have a negative environmental impact - finally came to a close late last month.

"It was arguably the most comprehensive and extensive regulatory process in Canada's history," said Pius Rolheiser, a spokesperson for Imperial Oil, the operator behind the pipeline.

"We had 22 months of public hearings in something like 27 communities in the north, from as far north as Tuktoyaktuk to as far south as Edmonton."

The purpose of the meetings was to give members of communities the pipeline would affect the chance to review the project plans and submit their concerns.

But the regulatory process is hardly over, said Rolheiser.

"In addition to the major application to the National Energy Board (which will ultimately decide, in the second half of 2009, whether the project should proceed), there are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of other permits that need to be obtained. You need water licences and land use permits for every single river crossing, stream crossing."

Close to 7,000 permits could be required if the project goes ahead.

The Aboriginal Pipeline Group - which stands to receive a third of the revenue from the project - was glad to see the JRP hearings end and is now hoping the process will move more quickly.

The project is one step closer to reality, but the JRP still has to write its report, said Bob Reid, president of APG.

"Seeing as the JRP have fallen behind in the process, it would be our hope that they could now make up for lost time and get their report out in an expeditious manner," he said.

According to Rolheiser, the earliest the pipeline could be in operation is 2014, provided there are no snags.

Rolheiser estimates the number of jobs created by the pipeline's construction each year, over the course of three or four years, will hover around 8,000. The number of operational staff for the pipeline will be approximately 200 to 300.

Imperial Oil is still in the process of negotiating access and benefit agreements with the aboriginal groups on whose land the proposed pipeline falls.

Rolheiser could not comment on the specific benefits each group will receive, but said benefits typically include things such as training and employment programs and preferential hiring for Northerners.

Final agreements have been reached for the Gwich'in Settlement Area and the southern part of the Sahtu Settlement area, while agreements-in-principle requiring a little more work are in place for the Inuvialuit Settlement Region and the northern Sahtu area.

Imperial Oil is in preliminary talks with the Dehcho First Nations.

A recent article in the Financial Post reporting that control of the pipeline has been ceded to TransCanada has been flatly denied by TransCanada, the APG and Imperial Oil.

"There is nothing new to report on the Mackenzie Gas Project, from our point of view," said Shela Shapiro, a spokesperson for TransCanada.