The investment bank Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. says it expects that British Columbia will secure two liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminals – one by 2021 and another by 2023 – rather than the three the provincial government in British Columbia anticipates by 2020.
The firm expects that it will be Shell’s LNG Canada terminal and Chevron’s Kitimat LNG, both situated near Kitimat, that will win out over the sixteen other LNG projects now being proposed. The current perceived frontrunner – Petronas’ NorthWest LNG – did not make the bank’s list.
The Financial Post reports, “The Canadian West Coast LNG play was already facing a set of commercial challenges, including customer pricing disagreements and inflated cost structures, that have been aggravated by the lower pricing environment, Eurasia Group said in a report last month. …The industry’s focus on cost-cutting has sharpened of late as spot Asian LNG prices have fallen below US$10 per million British thermal units, down 50% from a year ago, due to their linkages to oil prices, weak demand and abundant supplies, according to Citibank. …While the long-term outlook for LNG demand remains strong, the short-term may be challenging as at least eight new LNG projects in Australia are set to add a further 60 metric tonnes per annum of global capacity over the next two years.”
The corporate and government push for LNG terminals in BC remains strong though. And the article even notes, “While companies are not demanding any more improvements to B.C.’s LNG tax regime, the industry may get a break in the federal budget now slated for April.” The provincial government had promised the LNG industry would generate as much as $100 billion in tax revenue over the next thirty years. But now that the industry won the corporate-friendly tax structure it sought, the finance minister is vague about tax revenues.
The Council of Canadians is opposed to these LNG terminals and their associated fracking wells and pipelines. In public forums and community organizing we have highlighted that five LNG terminals would mean 28 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions, 582 billion litres of water extracted from rivers and lakes, and 39,000 new wells (the majority of which would be fracked).
To read our campaign web-page against the LNG agenda in BC, please click here.
