* Once all PDRs are completed for highway sections, the environmental review phase can begin *

Another step forward has been solidified for the Mackenzie Valley Highway project.
On Monday, the Project Description Report for construction in the Gwich’in settlement area was presented to Transportation Minister Michael McLeod by Gwich’in Tribal Council President Richard Nerysoo.

“The completion of the PDR for the Gwich’in Settlement Area represents a significant chapter in the Wrigley to Tuktoyaktuk highway project,” said McLeod in a press release. “This work, completed by the Gwich’in Tribal Council, confirms that working in partnership with Aboriginal groups is an effective way to plan and move forward on major projects.”
The project received unanimous support by the members of the 16th Legislative Assembly in 2008.
PDRs are currently underway for various portions of the all weather road and once they are all complete later this year, the project will enter its environmental review phase.
The federal government slotted a total of $150 million over five years to the Mackenzie Valley Highway in the budget that was tabled earlier this month.

The Conservative Government tabled the federal budget last Monday, and a key priority of the 16th Legislative Assembly is included.

“This funding recognizes the importance of supporting exploration, oil and gas development and other economic opportunities in the NWT for the good of Canada,” he said in a release.
“It fits with the federal government’s stated northern strategy and the progress we have made on Devolution and the Mackenzie Gas Project.”
Minister of Transportation Michael McLeod said that there is still plenty of work ahead with the funds now in place.
“We will work closely with our partners to ensure that this project moves forward,” he said in a release.
“We must still address the gap between the federal commitment and the projected cost of the road, but this is still an important step toward our goal of building an all-weather highway from Wrigley to Tuktoyaktuk.”
Funds have previously been committed for the completion of the Project Description Report to proceed to the environmental review stage and construction could begin as early as this winter on the project.

Completion of the Deh Cho Bridge could be delayed further according to the minister of Transportation.

“Information provided by the Contractor indicates that the superstructure trusses, towers and cabling were not completed during the past winter because of the late delivery of steel,” he said.
“As a result, certain weather-sensitive construction activities such as paving, constructing concrete curbs and grouting of deck panels are unlikely to begin before winter.”
The original completion date was scheduled for November of this year.
McLeod said that the government requested that Ruskin provide them with a revised schedule with reasoning for the delays.
“We will examine this closely to determine what steps to take next,” he said.
“Our primary concern is that the bridge is built safely and to the highest standards so that it can perform as expected during its 75 year design life without unnecessary added maintenance.”
He also added that it was unknown whether there would be added costs with the delay.
“The precise impact of a possible delay on the total capital cost of the project cannot be determined at this time,” he said. “The scope of work will not change significantly, however, so we are not anticipating there will be any additional capital costs to complete construction.”

The proposed Mackenzie Gas Project cleared another major hurdle last week after receiving the final go-ahead from both the federal cabinet and the National Energy Board.

“I think this is another great day for the Northwest Territories,” McLeod said in the legislative assembly on March 10. “The next big step is to get the two parties, the federal government and the pipeline proponents, together to negotiate and finalize a fiscal framework.”
McLeod said the proponents, which include Imperial Oil, the Aboriginal Pipeline Group, Exxon Mobil Canada, Shell Canada Limited, and ConocoPhillips Canada, have asked the federal government for a fiscal framework that includes loan guarantees, and not subsidies.
APG Chair Fred Carmichael said last week’s announcement was a “big step forward” for the project.
“We’re certainly happy and excited about that,” he said Monday. “It’s good for the north and good for Canada.”
Imperial Oil spokesperson Pius Rolheiser said the decision marks the final major regulatory approval for necessary for the project to proceed.
“This is the conclusion of the formal regulatory process,” he said. “It is a significant milestone for the project.”
Carmichael said it’s still too early to say when the discussions between the proponents and federal government will resume.
“We’ve all been preparing for this, trying to make sure as soon as we had a favourable decision we’d move forward in those discussions,” he said. “The project will be trying to reengage with the government just as soon as possible.”
Rolheiser said a tremendous amount of work remains before the proponents make a final decision on whether to proceed with the pipeline, including finalizing a fiscal framework with the federal government, securing the nearly 6,000 permits required for the project, restaffing the project team, and resuming engineering work.
“All of that work will take place between now and the end of 2013,” he said.
According to government estimates, the “basin opening” project will contribute$67.5 billion to the NWT economy and a further $86 billion to the Canadian economy.

$182 million bridge’s southern truss won’t be launched until after breakup at the earliest

Government of the Northwest Territories officials announced last week that work on the Deh Cho Bridge’s southern truss has been delayed.
Speaking to reporters in Yellowknife on Thursday, Kevin McLeod, the project manager for the GNWT, said the south truss will now be launched in June – over two months behind schedule.
With work on the bridge’s north truss nearing completion, McLeod said the bridge’s general contractor, Ruskin Construction, has decided to delay the launch, rather than risk having only part of the truss in place before the spring breakup.
“For him it was all or nothing. He could either get the whole 400 metres done on the south side or get nothing done,” McLeod told reporters on March 3. “He worked through the issues that if he got 100 metres out and then the ice came and destroyed that 100 metres, he would be $50 million in the hole and he would have to take that risk. I think he assessed that, and said it’s just too risky for him”
According to the GNWT’s most recent schedule, which was released to reporters in December, work on the southern truss was supposed to be completed by the end of April so that the installation of deck panels could begin in June. The one-kilometre span over the Mackenzie River at Fort Providence is scheduled to open in late November.
McLeod said Ruskin officials are confident that some of the latest delay can be made up through lessons learned on the construction and installation of the northern truss.
“That November date is not completely out the window,” McLeod said. “It’s something the contractor has to clearly articulate how they’re going to take care of that delay.”
The temporary work bridge will be removed prior to breakup and then be reinstalled once it is safe to do so, McLeod said, adding that officials should have a good indication of what the latest delay will mean to the project by the end of the month.
The announcement comes on the heels of the release of Auditor General Sheila Fraser’s report on the controversial project.
Fraser’s report, which was released on March 1, found that while the GNWT identified the risks inherit with building a bridge, it did not adequately manage them.
“The GNWT waived approval of the bridge design so construction could start, despite the Department of Transportation’s concerns about the design,” Fraser told reporters. “We also found that what was supposed to be a partnership with the private sector became a publicly-funded project with all the costs and risks resting with the government.”
Fraser’s audit was requested last year by regular MLAs.
She told reporters that she wouldn’t be surprised if the project came in over budget, or was delayed.
“I can tell you, in all honesty, that I will not be surprised if the final cost of the bridge is more than $182 million.”

Erosion on a section of Highway 2 between Hay River and Enterprise will be addressed sometime this summer, Northwest Territories Minister of Transportation Michael McLeod said last week.
Under questioning from Hay River South MLA Jane Groenewegen on Feb. 9 in the legislative assembly, McLeod said the erosion near that portion of the highway has been a concern for close two decades. Money has been set aside in the department’s budget to deal with the problem this year, McLeod added, though he was unable to say when the work would begin.

“Right now to try to deal with it and prevent it from causing any harm to the traveling public would be our first and foremost concern,” he said. “That it’s proposed for this coming summer is all I know at this point.”
There are no plans to reroute the highway further away from the riverbank at this point, McLeod told Groenewegen.
Instead, the department will look at different types of guardrails and rock, known as riprap, in efforts to shore up the embankment.
“We’ve been monitoring the situation for quite a few years. We have other situations where there are sheer drop-offs. We have guardrails,” he said. “At this point we want to ensure that it’s flagged. We will start looking at whether realignment is warranted. I have not been informed by any of the experts that have looked at it that it’s needed right at this point, at this time, but it’s something that we will consider.”

The proponents of the Mackenzie Gas Project reiterated the need for federal government support of the 1,200-kilometer natural gas pipeline amid a CBC report the $16.2-billion project could gain cabinet approval as early as this week.
“Should we obtain this approval, which would make regulatory approval of the Mackenzie Gas Project final … then our intent would be to reengage with the federal government in discussions on a fiscal framework for the project,” Imperial Oil spokesperson Pius Rolheiser said on Monday.

Rolheiser said the proponents and the federal government paused talks in early 2010 while they waited for the outcome of the regulatory process.
In December, the National Energy Board (NEB) approved the project with a list of 264 conditions. Cabinet approval would be the “final step” in the process, Rolheiser said.
“From our perspective, our intent has been from the outset, and remains, to work with the government to develop an agreement on a fiscal framework that makes sense for the project, and that provides an appropriate balance of risk and benefit – both for the proponents and for the federal government,” he continued. “We’ve been clear from the outset – we aren’t looking for a subsidy. That’s not what this is about.”
NWT Industry Minister Bob McLeod said federal support is integral and could come in the form of loan guarantees.
“We certainly feel in order for the proponents to make a decision, the two parties – the federal government and the proponents – have to negotiate a fiscal framework,” he said.
Aboriginal Pipeline Group chairman Fred Carmichael said the proponents have no indication when the project might get cabinet approval.
“We don’t know when,” he said. “All we know is (it’ll be) sometime by late January, or early February.”

In a historic decision, the National Energy Board (NEB) has approved the Mackenzie Gas Project, stating that it believes the $16.2 billion project to be in the public good.
“We find that the North and Canada would be better off with the project,” the NEB wrote in its report. “These economic, environmental and social objectives must be brought together to create the North that many people want. It takes a good economy to take care of the land and the people. We are convinced the Mackenzie Gas Project would bring the Northwest Territories closer to the vision of the North that many people shared with us.”

The NEB’s decision, which was released at 2:30 p.m. mountain time on Dec. 15, comes six years after the regulatory process began.
Northwest Territories Industry, Tourism and Investment Minister Bob McLeod called the NEB’s decision “an early Christmas present” for the Northwest Territories.
“This is an important milestone for a project that could provide significant economic and environmental benefits for the Northwest Territories,” he told reporters at a Yellowknife news conference.
But an official with one of the pipeline’s main proponents said the regulatory body’s approval of the project was simply the first of many decisions that need to be made before the 1,200 km pipeline from the Beaufort Delta to northern Alberta is constructed.
“Approval from the NEB is a significant, very positive step for the project, but it’s only one in a number of steps that yet remain in front of us before this project can become a reality,” Imperial Oil’s Pius Rolheiser said.
Rolheiser said the proponents will need to take some time to examine the decision, as well as the 264 conditions laid out by the NEB, before making a decision on whether to construct the pipeline. The NEB’s decision also needs to be approved by the federal cabinet, which should happen in the first quarter of the new year, Rolheiser said.
Bob Reid, the president of the Aboriginal Pipeline Group – which owns a one-third stake in the project – said the NEB’s approval was an important first step.
“It’s a great day for Canada, and a great day for the North in particular,” he said. “This has been a long time coming … the North, and the Mackenzie Valley in particular, is in a bit of an economic slump at the moment – lots of unemployment, and contractors without work. This gives the Mackenzie Valley a new future.”
Kevin O’Reilly, a member of the Yellowknife social justice group Alternatives North, stated they were disappointed with the NEB’s decision, saying the report did little to deal with the issue of sustainability, and failed to go into much detail on how the NEB reached its conclusions. It simply explained the positions of a few “key” organizations that appeared in hearings before the NEB.
“Then they all of a sudden jump to a conclusion or a finding without really providing much in the way of reasons,” O’Reilly said. “I find that really quite surprising because the title of this is actually ‘Reasons for Decision’ and I would have expected there’d be some rationale for the conclusions that they reached.”
The NEB’s decision not to grant the proponents a three-year extension to decide whether to build the pipeline could make the process “challenging,” Rolheiser said. The NEB has given the proponents a deadline of Dec. 31, 2013 to decided whether to go ahead with the project. The proponents had argued they needed until 2016 to decide whether the pipeline made economic sense and to secure a fiscal arrangement with the federal government.
“We said back in our final arguments … that the stars would really need to align in order for us to be able to make an investment decision in 2013,” Rolheiser explained.
But McLeod said the GNWT was pleased with the short sunset clause, as well as the possibility of communities creating natural gas distribution systems to replace systems that currently use heating oil and diesel generation.
“I was born and raised in the Northwest Territories and there was talk about the pipeline 40 years ago,” he said. “I think it’s taking too long. But I think this is the closest we’ve been to a pipeline, so we’re very optimistic and pleased with the NEB and its reasons for decision.”
The NEB have set the project’s sunset clause, the date by which the proponents must begin construction or lose the permit, as Dec. 31, 2015.
“For construction to commence by 2015, the project would need to quickly reach agreement with the government on the fiscal terms for the project,” Rolheiser said, noting that the proponents would also have to reassemble a project team to resume the required engineering, fieldwork and permitting. “All of which needs to be done in order for us to do, and ultimately receive, the thousands of additional permits that the project would require. We would need to have those thousands of permits in hand before we can make a decision to construct.”
Western Arctic MP Dennis Bevington said he was surprised the NEB did not extend the sunset clause.
“With the price of natural gas being what it is, I thought the NEB would be a little more forgiving with the company,” he said.
If the project requires federal support, Bevington said he would rather see that support in the form of infrastructure development, in order to bring the costs down.
O’Reilly said the sunset clause was “hollow” and would allow the NEB to extend the deadline if the proponents provided valid excuses.
“I think it’s just spinning this out again,” he said. “I think they’ve caved in quite a bit to what the proponents had wanted.”
Hay River South MLA Jane Groenewegen said she was “very pleased” with the news.
This could be very good news for Hay River,” she told The Hub. “Much will still depend on the price of gas and the confidence of the producers and pipeline proponents to proceed.”
If the project were to go ahead, the approximately 442,000 tonnes of steel pipe, as well as the fuel required to build the pipeline would be shipped to Hay River via rail. It would then be barged to locations north of Fort Simpson. Any material destined for locations south of Fort Simpson would be offloaded onto trucks.
NTCL president Bill Duffy said the pipeline’s construction would be a boon for both Hay River and the company.
“There’s no question it’s going to mean a tremendous amount to NTCL,” Duffy said. “It’s exciting to see the permit has been issued by the NEB, but there are still some very big decisions that the major players need to decide on.”
While Duffy was unable to give an exact number of jobs that would be created locally, he said it would match the company’s historical high for local employment.
“It would be a major, major increase in personnel, without a doubt, including the terminal and the shipyard,” he said.
Talks between the proponents, who include Exxon Mobil Corp, Royal Dutch Shell PLC, and ConocoPhillips in addition to Imperial Oil and the APG, and the federal government on a fiscal agreement have been “on hiatus” since earlier this year, Rolheiser explained. He said it’s too early to say when they would resume.
“Given the timing concerns, we would obviously seek to reengage that dialogue with the federal government in as timely a manner as we can.”
The MGP will contribute $67.5 billion to the NWT economy and create over 5,000 jobs over the course of its construction, according to estimates.

Northern corporations gathered on the Hay River Golf Course on Saturday in support of two local organizations with hopes of raising $25,000.
The third DeBeers Charity Golf tournament was held to raise funds for the Hay River Hospital Foundation and the Junior Golf program.
Approximately $30,000 was raised this year, raising the total funds for the Hospital Foundation to the $90,000 mark.

“I am just floored by the generosity,” said Cathie Bolstad, director of external and corporate affairs for DeBeers.
The funds raised for the HRHF will be going towards the Lumps n’ Bumps Treatment room proposed for the Medical Clinic.
The registration cost for the tournament was $500 per corporate team, and $150 for individuals.  The fee included breakfast, a full day of golf and a dinner put on by the Ptarmigan Inn. Eighteen corporate teams registered for this year’s charity tournament.
“It has been great,” said Dale Wheaton of the Ti’Cho Logistics team. “It has been sunny and warm. Any day you can be golfing and not working is a good day.”
After 18 holes, Kingland Ford came out on top with a score of 66.
With a final score of 70, both Midnight Petroleum and Detan Cho Logistics tied for second. The team with the highest score was FSC Architects and Engineers with a score of 83.
There were competitions on several holes, designed to raise money for the respective charities.
On hole nine, First Air was giving away two tickets to whoever shot closest to the pin, and all money raised was going to the Junior Golf program. The contest raised $1,000 for the program, and was won by Dan Kipling.
There was also a men’s and women’s long fly competition, which were won by Steven Rosendahl and Judy Goucher. The longest putt was made by Industry, Tourism and Investment Minister Bob McLeod.
Throughout the day, virtual golf was available for anyone, including non-golfers, in the club house. For $5, you could buy a scratch card with 18 golf holes. Each hole scratched reveals a number – the score for that hole. Tara Smith won two tickets from First Air through the contest with a total score of 74.
The final contest was the seventh hole closest to the pin competition. Each shot could be purchased for $20, or three for $50. Up for grabs was a .62 karat diamond from Snap Lake Mine valued at approximately $5,000. If a hole-in-one occurred, the winner would receive a second diamond valued at $4,500.
Robert Bouchard won the diamond after over 100 shots were made by participants.
“I think typically DeBeers has only given out diamonds for significant community events,” said Bolstad. “We are doing this because we are a company who sees themselves as part of the community, and hospitals help everyone.”
There are approximately 20 DeBeers employees who live in Hay River so DeBeers tries to visit and help out in their employees communities outside of Yellowknife.
In addition to the contests, both a silent and live auction were held which helped the tournament exceed it’s goal.
“We wouldn’t have been able to get most of the stuff we have now without [DeBeers] help,” said Heather Coakwell, chair of the Hay River Hospital Foundation.
“All I heard was positive results on everyone having fun. DeBeers has been a wonderful sponsor. We want to make it bigger next year.”

Premier Floyd Roland spoke to attendees at the 10th Inuvik Petroleum Show last Wednesday, expressing that cooperation and unity of Northern leaders is required for the development of Northern resources.
The show took place from June 22 – 24, and brings delegates from across Canada together to discuss the North’s petroleum potentia

“With our huge resource potential, the NWT continues to be well positioned to take advantage of substantial investment and economic activity,” said Roland in his address. “However, while the authority and control over natural resources have enabled provinces like Alberta and Saskatchewan to capitalize on their resource wealth, we in the NWT do not yet have that advantage.”
He introduced three key issues that will determine the NWT’s short term success.
First, the Industry’s will to commit, secondly the federal Government’s will to support Northern development and lastly, the will of Northerners and governments to work together.
“We need to speak with a single message – and convey a unity that reflects the values and goals we all strive for in the NWT,” said Roland.
He referenced the Mackenzie Gas Pipeline, saying that this project must be something the NWT wants for itself.
“It will depend on our collective will and ability to collaborate in the interest of a greater good,” he said.
“Many great things have been accomplished from the simple philosophy on which the success of this show has been built: the importance or working for the North, with the North, and in the North.”
Industry Minister Bob McLeod was also present for the Petroleum show, and believes the event was a success.
“I think the show went quite well,” he said. “I think that everybody is getting very anxious about getting a commitment for the MacKenzie Pipeline.”
But he said the government’s attitude towards drilling and furthering the oil and gas manufacturing in the North is a positive but cautious one.
“We support drilling but not at any cost,” he said. “We put forward the case that we needed more federal support and infrastructure.”