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The Inuvialuit Regional Corporation is exploring a mobile processing plant for its Inuvialuit Energy Security Project – a scaled-down version of the planned main facility – to help Inuvik get the gas it needs in the near future.
The Inuvialuit Energy Security Project will eventually build a natural gas and synthetic diesel plant at the M-18 well, between Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuk.
But work to finish the main facility is at least a year or two away from completion, and Inuvik Gas – the town’s current supplier – is facing pressing supply problems at its Ikhil facility.
Leaders of the Inuvialuit Energy Security Project, or IESP, are proposing to quickly set up a mobile plant that will allow some production to begin at M-18 and offer a backup gas supply to Inuvik by early next year.
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The Town of Inuvik agreed this month to provide a letter of support as the IESP looks for a green light from the Canada Energy Regulator to proceed.
IESP president Travis Balaski told a town council meeting that work on the overall facility is “definitely behind” and, since the full project won’t be operational for another two years, a “mini version of the IESP” can produce compressed natural gas for Inuvik in the meantime.
Without a mini IESP, alternatives to the Ikhil well involve trucking in propane-air, a synthetic natural gas, from the south. But that’s costly and road closures can disrupt the supply chain, Balaski told council.
“With M-18 being right there, we want to figure out a way that we can get gas online sooner, and we can kind-of displace continuing to bring up southern fuels, and actually displace trying to expand the propane system,” he said.
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A mobile facility – examples of which already operate in the United States, Balaski said – would be “our short-term solution to get gas out of M-18 and obviously get it into a trailer and bring it to Inuvik.”
As soon as the main facility at M-18 is up and running, the mobile plant would be shut down.
“But I’m going to be honest, this will likely be here for at least two years until we’re confident that the IESP is up and running,” Balaski told councillors, acknowledging delays to the work.
About half of the site’s equipment is fabricated or finished and much of the civil engineering work is complete, council was told, but the synthetic diesel side of the plant probably will not be ready until 2027. (Synthetic diesel is a manufactured version of ordinary diesel, put together from liquid byproducts of gas extraction at M-18.)
According to IESP staff, the project has been responsible for about $37 million in construction contracts to date with more than 70 Inuvialuit and Gwich’in workers employed.
