Canada green lights Mackenzie pipeline

OTTAWA, Dec. 31 (UPI) -- A seven-member federal panel in Canada backed a long-awaited natural gas pipeline from the western arctic through the Mackenzie River valley.

Imperial Oil, Canada's largest petroleum company, aims to build a 758-mile pipeline from the Beaufort Sea through Northwest Territories to link up with gas pipelines in northern Alberta.

Following a 10-year moratorium and decades of debates over the environment and the impact on Aboriginal peoples in Canada, the federal panel gave the green light to the $16.2 billion pipeline, Canada's Toronto Star newspaper reports.

Critics of the pipeline complained global climate change would leave the permafrost unstable for pipeline construction. The federal panel in response called on Imperial and its partners to work with the Canadian government to monitor the issue before digging for the buried pipeline.

Roughly 30 percent of the revenue goes to Aboriginal groups under the terms of a deal reached in 2000.

"The Mackenzie Gas Project offers a unique opportunity to build a sustainable future in the Mackenzie Valley and Beaufort Delta regions," the panel said. "The project itself, as long-term infrastructure, provides a key basis for future economic development."

The pipeline consortium is now in talks with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper to secure financial support for the project.