Once established, a highway would also lower the cost for companies doing exploration work up and down the valley, whether for oil and gas or for minerals. The Mackenzie Aboriginal Corp. (MAC) – a joint venture involving four big players in the construction industry – has done a study on the effects a road would have on the development of oil and gas resources. That report, completed in October 2007, estimated the cost of a road from Wrigley to Tuktoyaktuk at $1.8-billion. It also estimated that the “drilling season” – that period of time in the winter when exploration companies can go about their crucial drilling work – would be extended from 90 to 129 days each year. Barrie Robb, vice-president of business development for MAC, says this extra access time would increase the rate at which natural resources could be developed and the rate at which governments would earn taxes and royalties from such development. That’s music both to developers and governments’ ears and an argument for building it.
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