Apache’s proposed Kitimat LNG export facility. Apache Canada Ltd handout published by the Vancouver Sun.
In an article titled ‘West Coast LNG advocates face tough road ahead’, the Globe and Mail reports, “Industry plans to send Canadian gas to Asia have stirred optimism in British Columbia, where (there are) seven potential export projects (but they) may face a rude awakening as a result of the cost and difficulty of constructing mega-projects that must find customers in an increasingly saturated global market. …’Based on our model, most of these LNG projects will likely get shelved once the true costs are calculated,’ Peter Doig, an analyst with GMP Securities in Calgary, wrote in a recent research note to clients. …Bentek, a U.S. energy forecasting and analysis firm, believes only two Canadian LNG projects will be built by 2020.”
The article notes perhaps the two biggest threats: “Apache Corp., which is leading the Kitimat LNG project that secured Canada’s first LNG export licence (in October 2011), is pressing ahead, despite difficulties securing a lucrative contract that ties the price of gas to the price of oil. …Royal Dutch Shell PLC, which is leading Korea Gas Corp., Mitsubishi Corp., and PetroChina Co. Ltd. in a consortium to build another terminal near Kitimat, B.C. (that has appllied to export 24 million tonnes per year), also parried concerns.”
The Council of Canadians will be highlighting its opposition to the Pacific Trails pipeline in a speaking tour later this month. This pipeline is being proposed by the Apache Corporation, Encana and EOG Resources (formerly Enron) and it would carry liquefied natural gas from primarily shale gas development in northeastern B.C. and Alberta to export markets from the proposed Kitimat LNG facility noted above. While the National Energy Board has approved the Kitimat LNG terminal, the required regulatory approvals for the pipeline are ongoing. Pipeline construction is scheduled to begin in 2013-2014, with the pipeline to be operational by winter 2015. The Likhts’amisyu and Unist’ot’en clans of the Wet’swet’en nation have long opposed the Pacific Trails pipeline.
In November 2011, the Globe and Mail reported, “Environmentalists are calling for a moratorium on new (fracking) developments in B.C. until water safety and other health concerns are addressed – a demand the provincial government has dismissed.” In May 2011, the Globe and Mail reported that the Council of Canadians, the Sierra Club of BC, the Wilderness Committee, the BC Tap Water Alliance and others called for a provincial public inquiry on fracking.
TOUR & PETITION
For more on the October 23-30 tour, please see ‘Pipelines speaking tour’ on the front-page of our website at www.canadians.org. Our petition calling on the Harper government to place a moratorium on fracking in Canada can be signed at http://canadians.org/action/2011/fracking.html. To read Council of Canadians energy campaigner Maryam Adrangi’s blog about the Unis’tot’en action camp (which she attended) in opposition to the Pacific Trails pipeline, see http://canadians.org/blog/?p=16350.
