Public hearings on the C$7 billion Mackenzie Gas Project have been postponed for at least two months, with the sponsors adding they cannot predict how long the delay will turn out to be for Canada’s arctic development. In a letter to the National Energy Board, senior Mackenzie partner Imperial Oil Ltd. said the project will not be ready for hearings that were planned for late summer or early fall.

“There are a number of outstanding issues that still need to be resolved prior to taking that next step,” wrote project regulatory affairs manager Sandy Martin, an Imperial executive. The consortium hopes to be able to tell the NEB in late August or early September when the development will be ready for hearings, Martin added.

The board said it will be able to start proceedings about two months after receiving notice that the project is prepared for the final stage of the regulatory review. Preliminary exchanges of written evidence continue. The unresolved issues continue to be land access and community benefits agreements, project spokesman Hart Searle said. Disputes and rising northern demands prompted the project to suspend field operations in April until deals can be concluded.

The touchy negotiations with native communities are not the only obstacles. Although an aboriginal protest lawsuit was settled earlier this week, with an economic development deal signed by the Canadian government and the Deh Cho First Nations, it was only one of two court cases hanging over the Mackenzie project (see Daily GPI, July 13). Discussions are continuing among the project sponsors, aboriginal authorities and the federal and Northwest Territories governments, Searle said. He added the project cannot yet say how the holdup will affect its original schedule, which called for completion of the combined Mackenzie Delta production and Mackenzie Valley pipeline project in 2009 or 2010.

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