Good morning.
Thank you for the opportunity to address the House of Commons Standing Committee on Natural Resources.
My name is Peter Turner, and I am the president or executive director of the Yukon Chamber of Commerce. The chamber is an umbrella organization that represents the four Yukon community chambers of commerce and Yukon’s business sector.
I would like to provide a brief overview of the energy sector in the Yukon. I will focus on sections A and B outlined in the cross-Canada benefits summary, as our oil and gas industry is in its relative infancy.
Since its inception at the end of 19th century, resource extraction in the Yukon has been focused in the mining sector. Unlike Alaska and the Northwest Territories, the Yukon does not have a long history of activity in the oil and gas sector. Gas extraction has been limited to an approximately 25-year history of production from the Kotaneelee Field in the southeastern Yukon, very limited exploration in other basins, and recent exploration in the north central part of Yukon in the Eagle Plain Basin.
Natural gas extraction in the Kotaneelee using traditional non-hydraulic fracturing extraction methods has declined significantly over the past decade, and current output is nominal. Many Yukoners are not even aware that there is any active natural gas extraction taking place in the territory.
Recent exploration in north central Yukon at Eagle Plains, located adjacent to the Dempster Highway, which runs from Dawson City to Inuvik in the Northwest Territories, has included a limited two-year program of test drilling that has not involved any hydraulic fracturing.
I note the emphasis on the use of hydraulic fracturing practices in exploration and/or production as this is currently a hotly debated topic in Yukon, which is being examined by a special committee of the Yukon legislature. I will describe that further in this presentation.
Given our lack of developed natural gas and the major distances from any natural gas sources, Yukoners and our business sector rely on diesel fuel, electricity, propane, and wood-burning stoves for heating. Unlike citizens of Ontario, Alberta, or other provinces, we do not have a population or business sector that has a long tradition of using and relying on natural gas.
Diesel oil is also used by the Yukon Energy Corporation to supplement hydroelectric generation, especially during the winter peak energy-consumption periods. Recent work by the Yukon Energy Corporation served to link the northern and southern Yukon electrical grids and to expand a small hydroelectric project. Our current electricity system peaks at 144 megawatts total capacity.
We are challenged by this as a number of communities still rely on diesel-generated power for their energy or backup power systems, and the Yukon electrical grid is a stranded grid, which means it is not connected to the south or north. Discussion on potential interties has been only broadly explored and is yet to be properly studied.
We are also challenged by—