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“There is a negotiation element to all of this — if you have more options, it does help,” said Robert Roach, vice-president of research at the Calgary-based Canada West Foundation. “I am not sure how many people outside Alberta realize we are running up against a [pipeline capacity] wall around 2016, when we will have barrels of oil we can’t move.”

The Northwest Territories, which under new agreements with Ottawa is set to manage its own natural resources by 2014, is emerging as an energy powerbroker and resource powerhouse in its own right. But the region will need more pipelines to improve the viability of its own projects — including Canol, or shale oil, production in the territory — Industry Minister Dave Ramsay told the Post in an interview earlier this month.

“There is a possibility of Canol routed through the mountains into the Yukon and into Alaska,” Mr. Ramsay said. “These type of possibilities will have to be fully explored.” However, any pipeline crossing into Alaska would also require Washington’s approval.

The region also hopes to revive plans, now shelved, for the $16.2-billion Mackenzie natural gas pipeline, with the help of Chinese investors, as Canada’s northern territories take advantage of delayed infrastructure projects in the south.

A second, more complex project involves rail shipment from Alberta to the Valdez oil terminal in Alaska via N.W.T. and Yukon.

“And at Valdez you have the [oil] facilities and is actually closer to Asia than any other shipping point in North America,” Mr. Hughes said. “This would be a game-changer for Alaska if you look at it from their perspective, and the Yukon and, perhaps, the Northwest Territories.”