Canada Energy Regulator to give Imperial ‘interim extension’

One of three regulators central to the future of Imperial Oil’s Norman Wells facility says it will give the company an “interim extension” to keep operating during an environmental assessment.

Applications by Imperial Oil to keep the facility running have been referred by the Sahtu Secretariat, which represents Sahtu Dene and Métis, to environmental assessment – the most detailed form of regulatory scrutiny in the NWT.

In letters last month, the Sahtu Secretariat said “noticeable environmental changes, changes to geopolitical concerns affecting development, and increasing recognition of Indigenous rights” meant a new assessment was needed, while questioning the need for an oil field given the associated environmental risk.

Imperial, the major employer in the Sahtu community of Norman Wells, has said its regulatory applications did not include “material alterations” worthy of an assessment – a view the Sahtu Secretariat has challenged.

There are three regulators at play in the current situation.

Imperial Oil had applied to two of them – the Sahtu Land and Water Board and the Canada Energy Regulator – for the permissions it needs to keep operating in Norman Wells.

Any environmental assessment will be overseen by a third, the Mackenzie Valley Review Board.

Late last week, the Canada Energy Regulator published a document suspending its own process ahead of the expected environmental assessment.

Within that document, the CER stated it “will issue an interim extension of the OA” – operations authorization – “on its own initiative in due course to allow the Norman Wells operations to continue while the review board’s environmental assessment process unfolds.”

If the Sahtu Land and Water Board does the same, which is not yet clear, Imperial’s operations could continue under existing licences.

That may be an important step as the company had previously expressed concern that an environmental assessment could mean an abrupt winter shutdown of the facility if those authorizations expired. (The CER’s operations authorization for Norman Wells was due to expire at the end of December this year.)

Board discusses Imperial request

Imperial, meanwhile, is challenging whether the environmental assessment should happen at all.

The company argues this kind of assessment is designed for new projects, not established operations like Norman Wells, and the review board should not have accepted the Sahtu Secretariat’s referral.

Imperial filed a request last week for the review board to issue a ruling on that subject, and has said it is prepared to take the matter to court.

The review board met on Friday last week to review that request.

On Tuesday, the regulator is expected to issue a document outlining the next steps and a timeline for reaching a decision on whether an environmental assessment should go ahead.

The board said it would seek “the views of the territorial and federal governments, Indigenous governments, and other participants in the environmental assessment process.”

GNWT ‘live to’ Line 490 issue

The Sahtu Secretariat has referred Imperial Oil to environmental assessment twice in recent weeks.

The CER and Sahtu Land and Water Board applications, regarding the entire facility, form one assessment.

Imperial’s plan to replace some pipelines connecting islands in the Mackenzie River, a project known as Line 490, is set to be examined in another assessment.

Imperial has not asked to halt the Line 490 assessment and the review board has begun planning for that assessment to begin.

Last week, NWT industry minister Caitlin Cleveland called the Line 490 project “absolutely critical to maintaining a reliable energy supply” for Norman Wells.

“The GNWT has a responsibility to facilitate solutions and ensure things work smoothly for the community,” Cleveland said during a briefing on government supports for Sahtu businesses as fuel prices spike.

Imperial, which is the town’s fuel supplier, has blamed increasing costs on the need to ship fuel by air because the summer’s barge season failed, with water levels on the Mackenzie River too low for travel.

Earlier in the year, Imperial had warned Sahtu leaders that Norman Wells could even lose power if its Line 490 project encountered regulatory delays – a warning that one official described as blackmail, though Sahtu MLA Danny McNeely said the company was “just giving advance notice and making the circumstances a little bit more clear.”

“It’s imperative that we continue to engage with both Indigenous and community leaders to address this file,” Cleveland said last week, “and that’s something we’re very live to and watching very closely.”