Officials from three Canadian provinces and the Northwest Territories want Canada to retain its important role in US efforts to meet growing needs for natural gas.
“We view ourselves as pure, reliable suppliers to the US. We have been for a long time and want it to continue,” said Richard Neufeld, British Columbia’s minister of energy, mines, and petroleum resources.
More similarities than differences emerged between the officials and their counterparts in US states during a Mar. 9 seminar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC. Canadian producers are scrambling to find qualified employees. The officials themselves must balance economic, social, and environmental demands. And they’re willing to cooperate, but not capitulate, in developing energy resources.
Their main point was that resources in their jurisdictions are the most logical near-term gas solution as the US pursues a pipeline from Alaska, expanded LNG imports, and other long-run options.
“The message is that [Canadian] gas will find its way to American markets,” said Brendan Bell, Northwest Territories minister of industry, tourism, and investment. “We want to be part of a continental energy solution.”
Mckenzie gas pipeline
His government’s main oil and gas priority is the more than 750-mile pipeline project that would tap an estimated 7 tcf of gas in the Mackenzie River delta for transmission to Alberta and beyond.
The project has moved past discussions into regulatory reviews. Hearings before the Joint Review Panel and the National Energy Board are scheduled through 2006. Construction could begin by late 2007, and the system may be operating by late 2011. “Once we have that conduit to markets with considerable take-away capacity, we expect to see considerable activity along the line,” Bell said.
He also did not expect competition from the proposed Alaska gas pipeline because the Mackenzie project would be constructed first. “There is no way to do them at the same time. They obviously will have to be built sequentially,” he said.
Alberta, Nova Scotia
Some potential US customers have been hesitant to expect all the gas to go beyond Alberta because of that province’s growing gas needs for oil sands production and processing. But producers and the government there are looking for alternative recovery methods, according to Mel Knight, a member of Alberta’s legislative assembly.
Alberta remains Canada’s most active oil and gas area, with about 19,000 wells drilled in 2005 and some 24,000 expected in 2006.
“We are a frontier with 199 wells by comparison,” said Allison Scott, deputy minister in Nova Scotia’s Department of Energy. “We are incredibly underdeveloped.”
But the Atlantic province has offshore production and proposed LNG export plants close to major gas markets in the US Northeast. “We have a government that wants to work with industry,” Scott said. ✦