NWT minister sees Canol activity picking up with new land parcels up for grabs

CALGARY – Ten new parcels of land are coming available in an emerging shale oil deposit in the Northwest Territories.

Industry Minister David Ramsay says he expects to see strong interest in the leases, north of where companies have already committed to spend some $630 million on drilling.

So far, Imperial Oil (TSX:IMO), Shell, ConocoPhillips, MGM Energy (TSX:MGM) and Husky (TSX:HSE) have staked out positions in the Canol shale in the Central Mackenzie Valley.

Ramsay was at the Pacific Northwest Economic Region summit in Anchorage, Alaska, last week, where the subject of a “made-in-the-north” oil pipeline came up.

He has been promoting the idea of shipping crude from Alberta through the Northwest Territories and the Yukon to the Alaskan port of Valdez, where it could be transported by tanker to lucrative Asian markets.

Ramsay says talks so far have been taking place at the political level, and he hasn’t had the chance to sit down with pipeline companies such as TransCanada (TSX:TRP) or Enbridge (TSX:ENB) yet.