Alberta First Nations have formed a corporation aimed at building and running their own oil upgrader and refinery northeast of Edmonton.

The goal is to begin building the plant in two years, with native people being given priority for construction and operating jobs. That could bring important changes for aboriginal youth, said Eddy Makokis, grand chief of Treaty Six.

"A lot of young people are going into drugs, gangs," Makokis said. "Gangs are all over now and moving in, picking up on our youth, using the people who are on social assistance because they really don't have nothing."

Young people see the money they can make in gangs as the quickest way out of poverty, he said.

The upgrader could change that. The development is expected to bring as many as 4,500 construction jobs over 36 months, with full-time jobs for up to 1,000 people.

"A lot of our people in our communities are very depressed and don't have any employment. We need to provide some positive things for our youth and also our members of our communities."

Bands would share profits

The anticipated profits of $300 million a year would be split among the bands and allow other economic development such as companies to build houses desperately needed on reserves, and retail partnerships with companies such as Wal-Mart and Superstore, Makokis said.

The project would refine bitumen into crude oil and products such as diesel and jet fuel, producing about five billion litres of fuel a year, said Ken Horn, president of Teedrum Inc., the company set up to push the project forward.

The market — locally and internationally — should welcome the additional product, he said.

"In the last 24 months, we've seen yellow tape around a number of gas stations and the government, I think, views [that] as a risk for security when you run low on diesel and your gas stations are low on fuel," he said.

Sees room in market

"We certainly don't want to cannibalize any market or bring down profit margins where they're not good for anybody, but you know we believe there's a piece of the market in western Canada that we can land."

Designs for the plant include state-of-the-art technology, with ability to capture carbon and burn some byproducts to power the project. And while the proposal has been in the works for three years, there's plenty of hard work ahead.

Some work has been done to partner with Alberta companies for things such as engineering and construction. But Horn has also travelled to India to try to enlist the expertise of a company that's built 30 refineries around the world.

Financing is another big hurdle for a project that would cost an estimated $6 billion. Banks in Europe and Asia have been approached to invest in the proposed upgrader.

The project is a grandiose dream, Makokis admitted, but he said having long-term employment under First Nations control could be the essential ingredient in rebuilding life on the reserves.

'We see a lot of our young people leaving our communities, and I think you know if you bring back some of those people into this environment, work environment, it's going to be good example for other kids," he said.