Ikhil Gas Plant

The temps were moderated on Sunday with no wind and a promise of some clear skies. A heavy snowfall Saturday night piled up 30cm or so in town. I decided to take the snowmobile out of a spin to allow crews to clear the ice road before I went out towards Caribou Hills. I headed south and did about 25kms on the river which does have a bit of plowed road down it; cruised right along with clear skies and the moonlight lighting up the scene. The road was covered in the new snow but made for good travelling at 60 to 80 kms per hour.

After getting back to town caught up with the plow crews who were now working on the ice road. I traded the snowmobile for the truck and headed north to do some touring. As I drove I passed a work crew flooding the road to strengthen it. This entails drilling holes and pumping water onto the surface then slowly plowing the resulting slurry flat. All the snow that fell in Inuvik didn’t seem to reach out this far and there was little evidence of it past the Aklavik Junction. I stopped on the northern edge of the Caribou Hills where the height of the land is at all of about 230m above sea level, parked the truck and headed up onto the hills and barren lands behind. Conditions were variable at best, with everything from hard packed windslab to unconsolidated drifts. Things evened out as I started up the hillside though there was surprisingly instabilities in the layers with heavy windslab overlaying 15 to 30cm of depth hoar. When I skied onto this combination the settling was audible and prolonged with up to 40 square meters being affected at times. If the slopes were steeper and the terrain more complex this would be unprecedented in how bad this would be for skier induced releases. In this case the slabs just slumped and stayed in place.
The weather started to close in as I crested the top and limited views. I decided to head east and onto the plateau at which point a flare stack came into view, so I headed for it. It turns out through entirely happenstance I found the now infamous Ikhil Gas Plant – the one that supplies natural gas to Inuvik and is has now almost exhausted its reserves.

This is what the IRC page says about the wellsite
The Ikhil/Inuvik Gas Project is a wellhead to burner-tip operation created to supply Inuvik with natural gas from two wells at the Ikhil reservoir, located approximately 50 kilometres northwest of Inuvik on Inuvialuit lands. The project provides Inuvik residents and businesses with a secure supply of natural gas for power and heating at lower cost than fuel shipped from Edmonton. The project was initiated in 1997 by IPC after successfully testing well K-35. In 1998, J-35, a successful development well was drilled. K-35 and J-35 were completed in early 1999. Production modules were installed at the Ikhil site in early 1999. Construction of a pipeline to connect the wells to Inuvik and of a polyethylene distribution system were completed later that year.

This is what Inuvik Gas Ltd site says
Since 1999, residents and businesses in the Town of Inuvik have had their energy needs supplied by two natural gas wells at the Ikhil site. In November 2010, one of the two wells had an unexpected inflow of water, resulting in the well no longer being able to produce natural gas. Efforts to repair the well (K-35) have been unsuccessful. It is no longer in operation.

The second well (J-35) currently provides part of the town’s energy supply, although an independent reserve report confirmed that the recoverable reserves are significantly less than previously estimated. As a result, Ikhil can no longer provide a long-term natural gas supply.

Basically the company is now saying they have 1.13 to 1.67 years of supply left before the well runs dry (NNS article in October 2013). So everybody switched from diesel to gas in 1999 now there’s hardly any gas left.

Regardless it was a nice ski, no Caribou though but good turns in the gulleys where all the snow has collected. Nice to be back in the barren lands – ie no trees.