COP back in the gameAs expected, COP has refiled their application and put to rest any talk of shipping gas to Norman Wells
"Transporting Gas by Pipeline The two communities closest to EL470 are Tulita and Norman Wells. Neither of these communities is capable of using natural gas for heating. In Norman Wells, homes and businesses have recently converted to diesel heating because of the reduced supply of natural gas from the Norman Wells oil field. In Tulita, homes are heated with wood and diesel. Because the availability of natural gas from testing would be intermittent and short term, it is not reasonable to assume that potential customers in these communities
would spend money to convert their homes and businesses to natural gas. Furthermore, there is no existing pipeline to transport the gas to these communities. Therefore, these two communities are not considered as viable markets for sale of natural gas from testing operations. The lack of a pipeline would also be a factor in transporting gas to the next closest potential point of sale, Wrigley, located 350 km to the south. At a cost of about $400,000/inch-mile, the cost to construct a 3-inch line to Wrigley would be about $260 million.
Converting Gas to Compressed Natural Gas Compressed natural gas (CNG)
As discussed in the pipeline alternative, the nearest potential gas market is Wrigley. Natural gas would be compressed at the well site into high-pressure tank trucks and transported to Wrigley for sale. The cost to purchase equipment and set up and run a CNG operation on every well test is about $220 million.