‘Emergency’ in Sahtu as airlines are placed on fuel rations

Airlines serving the Sahtu have been placed on strict fuel rations after Norman Wells’ aviation fuel supplier announced it’s running out.

While one million litres of aviation fuel reached Norman Wells on the summer’s barges, a combination of wildfire evacuations and low water levels meant a barge carrying the remaining two million litres never made it.

Airlines and community leaders say news of a shortage came out of the blue in the past few days. As they scramble to adjust, they are asking what – if anything – was done between September and December to address a fuel shortage that someone must have known about.

North-Wright Airways, which is based in the Sahtu, says the fault lies with Imperial Oil, the town’s only supplier of aviation fuel. (While the NWT government is responsible for fuel supply to some communities, Norman Wells isn’t on that list.)

“Someone knew in September that they were short,” said Travis Wright, president of North-Wright Airways.

“I wish somebody would have conveyed that and talked about it, at which time I strongly believe we could have got some sort of government support to try to get fuel that we really need in this region.

“But it wasn’t talked about. And now we’re in December.”

The airline says it has had to cancel a range of charters as it prioritizes scheduled services, has had to upend those scheduled flights and reduce capacities to carry more fuel from Yellowknife, and is now “bleeding money.”

If RCMP or the NWT Power Corporation need special flights to address emergencies, Wright added, his airline doesn’t have enough fuel to help. (North-Wright said one such request from the power corporation had already been rejected.)

Imperial Oil sells aviation fuel to a Norman Wells distributor named World Fuel, which then sells it on to airlines serving the region like North-Wright and Canadian North.

Meetings between all of those parties have been taking place for days, with NWT government assistance. As of late Friday morning, Wright said there had been no progress toward a solution.

Waiting for the winter road to be ready in late January or early February isn’t enough, he said. By that point, North-Wright will have run out of fuel.

At the moment, fuel rationing in response to the crisis means North-Wright is being given around 6,900 litres of fuel in Norman Wells weekly. The airline says it needs 22,000 litres weekly to run its normal operations.

“This is the wrong time of year for this to be happening. Everyone’s travelling through the holiday season with a lot more gear. It puts a lot of frustration on everybody in the region,” said Wright.

“We’re trying to help the scenario as best we can, but I really wish companies like Imperial would look at it the same way and help with the situation, and get fuel here too. We’re forking out money to make things work. Why is it put onto our lap?”

Imperial Oil spokesperson Keri Scobie did not directly respond to questions about why the fuel shortage had occurred and why the severity of the crisis had only just become apparent.

Scobie instead wrote: “Imperial is aware of low jet fuel inventory in Norman Wells, and we notified our sole customer, World Fuel Services, who provides fuel to the airlines in Norman Wells.

“Norman Wells can’t be serviced by traditional supply chain methods until the winter roads open so alternate sources of supply are currently being explored. Imperial is meeting with local leaders and government to discuss interim solutions until the winter roads open.”

‘Ongoing conversations’

“I would almost call it a state of emergency right now,” said Danny Gaudet, Ɂek’wahtı̨dǝ́ or chief of the Délįnę Got’įnę Government, of the Sahtu fuel situation.

North-Wright Airways has been leaning on Délįnę’s fuel supply, which is maintained by the NWT government, to supplement its Norman Wells ration as the shortage bites. But Délįnę doesn’t have enough fuel to keep doing that for long without sparking a crisis of its own.

“It’s very serious,” said Gaudet, who added that Imperial Oil “don’t seem to be too excited about the fact that they don’t have any aviation fuel.”

“We all know how it happened, but what’s surprising is nobody’s done anything,” he said. “Why are they just dealing with it now? It doesn’t make sense to me at all. Why didn’t they have a plan the moment they knew the barge wasn’t going to make it?”

Gaudet, like Wright, said he had been taken aback by the provision of one day’s notice before a rationing system was introduced. He added there had been mixed messages over how much fuel is actually remaining in Norman Wells, and he worries there might be consequences for other forms of fuel beyond aviation.

“This is an essential need for the Sahtu, because we’ve got no highway,” Gaudet said of air travel in the region.

“You guys need to work with us so we can keep our planes moving and keep our groceries going and passengers moving, get our medical patients in and out.”

Caroline Wawzonek, the newly installed NWT infrastructure minister, told Cabin Radio her department was doing everything it could to ensure the private businesses involved talk to each other and quickly reach a solution.

Asked if the GNWT understood how Norman Wells had gone from September to December without any apparent plan to receive the missing aviation fuel, Wawzonek said: “I can’t speak to what Imperial Oil did or didn’t do when their two million [litres] didn’t arrive as a private resupply. They certainly appear to be live to the issue now and, I gather, are engaged with those that rely on their supply.”

“There are ongoing conversations, including today, between different airlines and Imperial to understand what, in fact, is the available total supply and what is the actual need of the different airlines,” the minister continued.

“We are interested to make sure that conversation happens in a timely way and the information that they receive is fulsome, so that we know what steps further there might need to be to fill any gaps.”

Wright is proposing two solutions: either the rationing system is changed to give his airline more of the remaining fuel, or someone pays to fly more fuel into the community as soon as is practical.

He said Imperial so far hasn’t offered what he considers meaningful support.

If nothing changes, Wright warns the consequences could extend beyond the Sahtu.

Norman Wells is relied on as an alternate airport when airlines file flight plans, he said, meaning it’s a backup option if, say, your flight from Yellowknife or Whitehorse can’t land in Inuvik as planned.

If airlines can no longer list Norman Wells as an alternate because there’s no fuel available, Wright said flights will have to list places like Yellowknife as a backup instead, meaning a much farther distance and much more fuel they’ll have to carry just to be safe. That’ll have an impact on the cost of the flight and the cargo or passengers it can carry.

Kyle Newhook, North-Wright’s operations manager, said residents could see cargo delays, an increase in ticket prices from some airlines and even an increase in food costs. Food already costs a lot of money in the Sahtu, and this year’s resupply issues have already limited food availability.

“Everything is now going to be likely affected by the fuel situation here,” Newhook said.

He said nobody can explain why no fuel arrived – and no warnings were issued – between September and December.

“Had somebody said something back in September, October, we could have started to make small changes to the company to assist,” Newhook said.

“It just puts salt on the wound when you left it this late, because it left us almost no choice to adapt our schedule to assist. We all could have started making small changes to help get us to the ice road season.”

New push for a highway

Territorial government officials say they’re hopeful that some sort of solution can be reached some time next week at the latest, though there’s no guarantee.

In the longer term, one solution keeps coming up: the Mackenzie Valley Highway.

Building an all-season road connecting the Sahtu to the rest of Canada has been a project trumpeted by the NWT government for decades.

On the one hand, the highway is currently going through an environmental assessment process that counts as progress. On the other, some smaller projects associated with the highway have been delayed by years, and the federal government has not committed to providing the hundreds of millions of dollars – in all likelihood, $1 billion or more – the NWT needs to get the highway built.

For months, Sahtu communities have been saying that the highway is becoming an urgent need as the climate shifts and traditional resupply options, like winter roads and barges, are threatened.

Gaudet says this is just the latest evidence of a major problem brewing.

“I don’t know why they don’t just start,” he said of the Mackenzie Valley Highway. “Everybody has been asking for it for 20 years.”

Wawzonek said both her office and Premier RJ Simpson’s office have been taking calls about the highway this week. She noted it was also a prominent feature of November’s election campaign – the highway was raised by seven of the NWT’s 19 MLAs in speeches following the election, including Sahtu MLA Danny McNeely.

Because those MLAs are still collectively working on priorities for the new government, Wawzonek said she didn’t want to “supersede the priority-setting process” by commenting on the highway. In late November, before the new cabinet had been selected, she told MLAs the Mackenzie Valley Highway was an “obvious opportunity already under way that we must see to completion.”

With a fresh fuel crisis developing, the minister acknowledged: “The calls for this have definitely been coming louder.”