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Aerial alternative

Energy companies have for decades pondered how to transport natural gas south from the Mackenzie Delta and Beaufort Sea to market, with a 1,200-km pipeline deemed the best solution.
Graphic1
A conceptual drawing of a SkyGas vessel.

Energy companies have for decades pondered how to transport natural gas south from the Mackenzie Delta and Beaufort Sea to market, with a 1,200-km pipeline deemed the best solution.

But with the proposed Mackenzie Gas Project facing regulatory hurdles, rising costs and objections from aboriginal and environmental groups, a United Kingdom company with ties to Ponoka is suggesting an aerial alternative.

World SkyCat Ltd. says “hybrid air vehicles” could carry natural gas from the rich northern resource fields. The dirigible-like airships would be filled with the lighter-than-air cargo and then transport their gaseous payload south.

Michael Stewart, World SkyCat’s managing director, said each “SkyGas” vessel would hold about 85 million cubic feet of natural gas and have a cruising speed of approximately 110 knots (200 km/h). He added that 15 of the massive airships should be able to transport a volume of gas equivalent to that proposed for the pipeline.

“In fact, you would obviously want to pick up the gas from the various fields supplying the feeder-pipes as well as fields too remote or too small to justify pipelines, so that you would eliminate the whole network of transportation required to get to the pipeline head,” said Stewart via email from England.

The cost of each SkyGas vehicle is estimated at $225 million, with a few surplus ships required to cover downtime and other needs. This would still result in a much lower expenditure than building the pipeline, said Stewart.

As for safety concerns, he said a hull breach would be very unlikely, and even then a very specific oxygen mix would be required for the natural gas to burn. It would also combust upward and disperse.

“You would have the blaze in the sky and only some debris falling to earth.”

Michelle Stirling, a Ponoka-based associate with World SkyCat Western Canada — a marketing arm of World SkyCat — said the liquefied, pressurized gas carried in pipelines and ground transportation tanks is more hazardous.

“By contrast, this is a way safer method of transporting natural gas.”

Stirling sees other advantages to the SkyGas alternative. These include a much smaller environmental footprint on the northern ecosystem, no need for facilities to convert the gas into a liquid and back again, and a flexible delivery system.

“If you find your market is somewhere else in the world, then you just send your SkyGas vehicle in that direction,” she said.

An aerial transport system would also eliminate concerns about the ability of Alberta’s labour force to build the sprawling pipeline.

World SkyCat has previously suggested the use of airships to haul equipment and materials to Northern Alberta. The Ponoka Industrial Airport was identified as a possible base of operations, where the vessels would be serviced and maintained.

Stirling thinks Ponoka could play a similar role with respect to a SkyGas fleet.

“It wouldn’t be a place where a loaded vehicle would fly in,” she said. “They would be flying between points of delivery.”

So far, World SkyCat has only had preliminary discussions with industry, said Stewart. Ideally, he added, prospective users would finance the development of a scale model of a SkyGas airship.

“This would take maybe 18 months, and the full-scale vehicles would be coming off the line perhaps 36 months later,” he said.

hrichards@www.reddeeradvocate.com