REGINA – The route of a proposed natural gas pipeline near the Alameda dam in southeastern Saskatchewan could be changed to alleviate local concerns, says the president of Alliance Pipeline Ltd.
Dennis Cornelson said the “one significant concern” Alliance heard at the first in a series of meetings along the proposed route was the pipeline’s proximity to the shifting dam.
The pipeline is supposed to run downstream of the dam to the south, but landowners would prefer it run north of the reservoir, he said.
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“We’ll be taking a look at that and studying that whole issue in greater detail to see whether we should be doing that,” Cornelson said. “I don’t think that it’s necessarily a significant choice to make either way, but at this point I’m really not prepared to say it’s optimal to make either choice in particular.”
Alliance plans to build a 3,000-kilometre-long, 0.9-metre pipeline from northeastern British Columbia, through Alberta and Saskatchewan and into the northern United States. The company is holding open houses in 16 communities along the Canadian route, ending at Fort St. John, B.C. in mid-January. Meetings will follow in North Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois.
Cornelson said there has been a positive reaction from most landowners and environmental groups have been consulted.
Landowner concerns
“I think that some of the issues that we’re facing along the right-of-way will likely be more related to specific landowner concerns than a general concern about any environmental impacts,” he said. “The pipeline right-of-way follows an existing pipeline right-of-way and it crosses primarily farmland with no really difficult environmental challenges.”
Alliance includes 18 companies representing about 25 percent of gas production in western Canada and Interprovincial Pipelines Ltd.
Cornelson, in Regina for a meeting with premier Roy Romanow, said construction of the pipeline would allow access to U.S. markets that are not reached yet.
“As a result of that, natural gas prices in western Canada are not providing the necessary incentive to really get the most out of the resource base that we have here,” he said. “So there’s a tremendous economic opportunity here to realize our potential, to satisfy a market demand that is there and is growing.”
The $3.6 billion project will employ 7,000 people directly and indirectly during two years of construction. About 120 people will be employed in Saskatchewan alone once the pipeline is operating.
“We should be investing something in the order of $340 million in the province directly in terms of jobs, and in total there should be something like $800 million created in terms of employment over that two-year period,” Cornelson said.
Local contractors will be employed where possible, he said. This could include using Regina-based IPSCO to manufacture the pipe. Cornelson said IPSCO is not currently set up to manufacture the type of pipe needed but could with “reasonable significant investment” in its facility.
He said Alliance is now establishing a customer base, and must file for regulatory approval in both the U.S. and Canada before financing will be fully in place in early 1998.
Construction is to be completed by Nov. 1, 1999.
