The minister in charge of resource development in the Northwest Territories says he hopes the federal permit to build the long-dormant Mackenzie Gas Project will be extended. "We don't want to see all the work that's gone into it just disappear and have to be started all over again at some other point in time," David Ramsay said in an interview from Houston, where he got an update from energy heavyweight ExxonMobil Corp. When the project got its Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity in 2011, backers were given until the end of 2015 to start construction.