Good news for Mackenzie gas pipeline expected soon, says Nellie Cournoyea
Bill Graveland - Canadian Press - Friday, November 11, 2005
CALGARY (CP) - Evidence is continuing to mount suggesting the $7-billion Mackenzie pipeline, stalled since last April, will get the green light next week from members of its consortium.
"We have been negotiating on benefits agreements and I guess the best I can tell you right now is we are very close and we really expect on Nov. 18 there's going to be a positive announcement," said Nellie Cournoyea, former chairman of the Aboriginal Pipeline Group and a one-time premier of the Northwest Territories.
"That leaves other greater beings to say and give you the final results," said Cournoyea to a business audience at the Calgary Chamber of Commerce on Thursday.
Imperial Oil (TSX:IMO) is leading the Mackenzie project consortium along with partners Shell Canada (TSX:SHC), ConocoPhillips (NYSE:COP), Exxon Mobil (NYSE:XOM) and the native-owned Aboriginal Pipeline Group which holds a one-third stake in the proposed line and represents numerous N.W.T. aboriginal groups.
The partners were initially hoping to have the pipeline up and running by the end of the decade. But last April, the energy companies said they were shutting down most of the work on the line, saying they were being asked to pay hundreds of millions of dollars for social programs and land access rights that the various governments should be covering.
Cournoyea, the chair and CEO of the Inuvialuit Regional Corp., is negotiating with Imperial to resolve the access and benefits arrangements. Her reason for optimism stems from a belief that most of the negotiations are near to completion.
"Certainly from the effort that has been put into those negotiations it looks like we will be ready to see a positive announcement," she said.
Her remarks support comments made by the president of Exxon Mobil Tuesday.
"My expectation is the Mackenzie pipeline will go forward. I think there's been good progress made in dealing with a number of longstanding issues regarding aboriginal claims and benefits and compensation that they expect," said Exxon president Rex Tillerson.
"My expectation is we will ultimately get across the finish line with this thing," he said.
The pipeline would carry natural gas from three discovered fields in the Mackenzie Delta across the Northwest Territories to join the existing gas pipeline system in northwestern Alberta.
The members of the consortium are expected to give an update to regulators about future plans for the pipeline later this month.
For Cournoyea it's not a matter of if but when the project gets underway.
"It never did seem to me that there was a possibility that the Alaska pipeline was going to be coming in before the Mackenzie Valley," said Cournoyea.
"Even though we have some difficulties even if they were told, yes go ahead today, I would say it would take seven or eight years to get where we are," she said.
© The Canadian Press 2005
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