Summing Up Mackenzie Progress

Calgary Herald, by Don Martin.   This is the Mackenzie Valley pipeline route, connecting the motherlode of Arctic gas deposits in the Beaufort Sea to the northern Alberta gas-dissemination network.  But no pipeline equals no pipe dream--and the $16-billion megaproject to create another energy frontier and give aboriginal communities an economic lifeline is now apparently dead.      *      CBC.  Environment Minister Jim Prentice declined to comment on a National Post article that raised questions about the future of the N.W.T.-based pipeline project, which has been plagued by ballooning costs and regulatory delays.  Citing unnamed sources, the Post said a federal cabinet committee rejected a financial assistance package he proposed for the project, based on concerns about the project's high pricetag.  "The Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Project, as I have said previously, is a private-sector investment that needs to make sense on an economic basis under market principles. That's what I've said repeatedly, and that continues to be the case," Prentice told reporters Tuesday in Ottawa.