Fuel-short Sanikiluaq will receive airlifted diesel next month

Diesel is in short supply in Sanikiluaq, but the Nunavut government will airlift 120,000 litres of the fuel to the southern Hudson Bay community.

“It appears we will have enough fuel until about July, and we are planning to fly in a fuel supply,” Lorne Kusugak, Nunavut’s minister of Community and Government Services, said May 29 in the territorial legislature in response to questions from Hudson Bay MLA Allan Rumbolt.

The airlift, planned for June, will keep the power on in Sanikiluaq, which like other Nunavut communities, relies on diesel fuel to generate its electricity.

Kusugak also promised Sanikiluaq will receive three temporary reservoirs this summer to store more fuel until permanent tanks can be built.

Kusugak predicts that more Nunavut communities will face a similar lack of space for fuel in the future.

“It’s unfortunate, but we will begin to run into this kind of issue throughout the territory as communities grow and people gain more mobile equipment,” he said.

Fuel will also to be airlifted to Repulse Bay, if that community runs short of fuel, Kusugak said May 30 in the legislature.

In 2008 and 2009, eight communities received 900,000 litres of fuel by air.