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An examination of plans to replace pipelines in Norman Wells – one of two environmental assessments recently launched involving Imperial Oil – should take half a year, regulators say.
The Line 490 project would reopen an area of Imperial’s Norman Wells site that has been off-limits for production since some pipes failed in 2022.
Imperial is proposing to replace various pipes between Mackenzie River islands using a technique called horizontal directional drilling, or HDD. A tunnel would be dug under the river and then a pipeline pulled through the tunnel.
The Sahtu Secretariat referred that plan to environmental assessment in September, saying HDD represented “unique, novel and unusual” technology that, combined with “a continually changing river environment” along the Mackenzie River, necessitated close scrutiny.
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This environmental assessment is separate to a second assessment that the Sahtu Secretariat later requested for the entire Norman Wells operation. Imperial has queried whether that assessment of the whole facility is needed or legally valid, an argument regulators are now considering.
On Friday, the Mackenzie Valley Review Board said “the amount of existing information” from earlier regulatory proceedings meant it could use that information in the Line 490 assessment rather than ask Imperial to provide it all again, saving some time.
Under a proposed timeline released on Friday, community hearings would take place about Line 490 in January 2025. A decision would be made in March that year, with the minister’s final response coming after that.
Members of the public and interested parties have until November 6 to comment on the review board’s planned approach.
Imperial has said the Line 490 work is critical to keeping its Norman Wells facility open for the next five to 10 years, at which point the facility is expected to close for good.
