Petroliam Nasional Bhd.’s proposal to build a liquefied natural gas terminal on Canada’s Pacific Coast faces further delay as the minister responsible prepares to declare it will likely have a significant environmental impact, according to people familiar with the matter.
Environment and Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna will refer a verdict to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s cabinet rather than approving the C$36 billion ($27 billion) project with conditions, said to two officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because the decision isn’t yet public. The government’s review period ends March 22 but the cabinet has no deadline for its deliberations.
The Pacific NorthWest LNG decision is among the first tests of the Trudeau government’s handling of energy and climate issues. Earlier this year, it overhauled the environmental-review process to consider greenhouse-gas emissions from proposals and boost the role of cabinet in approvals. Liquefied natural gas proponents in Canada were already playing catch-up with global competitors before the oil-market collapse brought down LNG prices and caused companies to crimp spending on megaprojects.
“This is going to be widely watched as a barometer on the government’s interest in supporting what is the driver of the Canadian economy, which is energy,” said John Stephenson, chief executive officer and founder of investment firm Stephenson & Co. in Toronto. Petronas could abandon the project if the government imposes costly conditions on development, he said. “Any hiccup from the government’s side, I could see these guys walking.”
h/t Adrian
Related:
Trudeau says Bombardier has a new plane that is like REALLY good and how else will they sell it without $1 billion in government money?
— Justin Ling (@Justin_Ling) March 17, 2016
I’m surprised the LNG project is still around. After all, Clown Prince decreed that there will be no tanker traffic on the west coast.
I think he’s going to drag this out like O’Bummer did with Keystone XL. He’ll make all sorts of noises and gestures, hoping that the backers will lose interest and take their business elsewhere. If they don’t, then he’ll finally get the lead out, make a command decision, and scuttle it by government order.
Of course, by doing that, he’ll chase away foreign investors as nobody would want to put money into a country with a government that horses around like that. Maybe that’s what he actually wants.
Frankly I’m not surprised. Energy policy in Canada is now ideologically based – it has nothing to do with jobs or economic prosperity. Be prepared for a long 4 yrs of sliding down the slope towards social disaster.
Exactly. It might be in Canada’s best long term interest if Petronas tells Shiny Pony to shove it.
How is any investor supposed to take Canada seriously when a Liebel Party that rules lacks competence and regularly crosses the line of legality. Another Liebel gang arrested in the most corrupt province in the country. Yes the same province from which current leadership was spawned.
My confidence in the Canadian voter continues to slide along rock bottom. I can understand the popularity of Trump as many simply reject the status quo and are convinced anything would be better. I am not in Canada now and have little idea how the CPC is working towards new leadership. I am so jaded about the conservative movement that I will not participate.
Harper distanced himself from pipeline proposals letting the bureaucracy run its course. Trudeau is participating actively in the destruction of the Canadian economy. What does it take to get a project outside of Quebec built – a Constitutional amendment?
The electorate will remain aligned with all things sold with the Eco label, so long as their petrol is cheap and their houses affordably-warmed. No pipelines, no new highways, no shipping terminals … nothing. Nothing but windmills and puppies rescued from profiteering breeders … oh, and unicorns, rainbows, and all that kind of thing. The electorate won’t budge until they start REALLY paying-for their short-sighted belief system. THEN they will wake up … when their household budgets become ‘necessarily bankrupt’. Which of course will be … too late … for THEM
Someone should remind PM Airhead that the native bands are in favour of this, they’ve been promised jobs and grease.
We knew this was coming, a very Eastern based Quebec gubermint, who don’t a fig about the west.
Like PM Poof’s native tattoo, its just there for show, its only skin deep!
I suggest that this also is an attempt to sink Christy Clark’s government in BC.
She has hung her shingle, to a fairly large degree, on LNG helping BC prosper but, at the same time, she has denied Vancouver City mayor Gregor Robertson funds for his Skytrain line from the middle of the City of Vancouver to UBC.
Gregor Robertson and Justin Trudeau are good buddies.
So, the Vancouver Sun, tut-tuting, will report that the LNG dreams of Christy Clark aren’t making any progress but, of course, they won’t explain why.
On the other hand, Christy Clark is brilliant and savvy and a superb premier, just like her predecessor Bill Bennett.
A friend of mine who is a big player in oil and gas in Canada explained to me that the new Bombardier C Series jets, if they go to full production and meet sales targets, will emit far more CO2 during their lifetime than will be saved by Pony’s proposed CO2 carbon tax.
Think about the irony of that finding for a minute.
They analysis came from a study done by some of the oil and gas folks in Canada who are getting increasingly pissed off with the provincial and federal governments.
Our new PM is indeed an idiot, as are most liberals/left-wingers/progressives.
Very much literal representation of hot potato being thrown from one useless political idiot to another.
Passing the buck would be another analogy.
Not my problem, as it were.
Not my pile of shit, as it were.
You are it, as it were.
The financial consequences haven’t really started to drift through the ether and into the mushy minds of fools who voted for hairlisp yet. For example the talk about tax returns has come up recently with some acquaintances who are hairlisp fans… they note that their taxes are about the same as last year. Then I reminded them that the income splitting/family tax cut is going away next year. WHAT? That’s like $2500!!!! Yeah you voted for it clown and get ready for the job loses.
The infrastructure for the LNG terminal has been under construction for at least five years.
A trucker friend first told me he was taking loads of building material to the site at Kitimat in 2012. Up to that point,there was almost no publicity, just as there was only rumors of NG exploration North of Prince George a few years back.
I guess the companies involved have to tread lightly in these days of environmental zealotry and activism. They were apparently building a camp for several thousand workers and going full bore ahead with the project, so I would guess that hundreds of millions of dollars has already been spent on the LNG terminal. If the project is stopped due to political machinations, how big will the lawsuit(s) be?
This is the biggest project to be built in B.C since the good old days of WAC Bennett when we built the Hydro dams in the Province. We need the industry,and the jobs,and the real chances of an environmental disaster are remote.
If this is an example of how the Liberal government in Ottawa is going to proceed on every oil and gas project in Canada, we are going to be a third world Country in a short time.
“I reminded them that the income splitting/family tax cut is going away next year”
It’s a sad commentary when people have to have these types of facts pointed out to them. It was made quite clear during the election campaign that these items would be done away with on the premise that they benefited only the wealthy. Anyone with any ounce of common sense and the ability to prepare a tax return knows this to be false. But I suppose that when you run down to the nearest H&R Block as soon as the T4 arrives, details don’t really matter. Next year when the refund is significantly less, it might hit home. Harper will be blamed.
So it appears that the phoney resistance by B.C. on the Gateway projecct may actually turn around to deep six their own LNG projects (which were really in direct competition with Alberta oil).
The green theocracy of Canada will not permit petroleum-based industrial development on the West Coast nor a national route for Canadian petroleum to tidewater on either coast. The progressive culture of Canada is toxic to western civilization, industrial civilization and reason. It is a multicultural cesspool of nihilism centered in Toronto and Montreal. The Spawn and his green brain-trust puppet-master are in charge and the Spawn’s lobbying for a seat at the Security Council circle jerk is more important than Canadian prosperity.
Anybody else catch the news clip of Junior being interviewed at some feminist function and the end of his comment was “… duh!).
That REALLY sums up his level of cognitive (dis)ability.
Prayer is our only hope.
To make matters even more interesting, there’s a lot more natural gas in B.C. than they thought.
B.C.’s Liard Basin natural gas reserves four times higher than previously thought
Buy shares in Bombardier, wait for the bale out, sell, profit.
Stupid bunch of Tree Huggers/Granola Munchers and their rediculous enviromental ideologies based upon their own wacky weed infested pipe dreams They need to GET A LIFE and live in the wilderness for a year
I wonder what those subsidized Bombardier jets will be fueled with – sunny ways?
“Buy shares in Bombardier, wait for the bale out, sell, profit.”
I suspect the expected cash windfall is already reflected in the share price. It is Quebec and we have a Liberal Federal government. Nothing is surer.
With Saudi oil brought up the St. Lawrence in tankers.
No don’t. If this is Liberal business as usual,the shares have already been snapped up by the normal insiders, who will gladly sell you those shares,after the government announcement “enhances” their value.
The lawlessness of our kleptocrats is breathtaking.
Sure to encourage business and donations to the “party”.
Nevermind you have properly followed all the forms,paid for all the assessments and consulted every wanna be.
Now the Kleptocrats can willfully add additional conditions after process.
There is no rule of law in Canada.
Civil society is unsupported and thus unsustainable.
BC ships most of their natural gas to the US through Alberta. We bear the risk and they get most of the profit.
Scar, does Nutley know that?
I tried that. Bought shares in Bombardier in the 90s when Chretien kept funneling them cash. Thought if you can’t beat ’em, join them. They were around $20/share at the time. Then 9/11 happened and they took a big hit. Lost about 1/2 the share value. Never recovered and slowly kept sinking to where they are now – a buck and change. The only good thing about them was that they kept paying a (small) dividend.
I got the impression that the company was only in business to enrich the family members and the politicians on the board.
Similar here, then in Jan 2010 Stock was about $6, sold. Turned that into a 2 yr old 4×4 Ford truck (mint). No loan. We figured it wouldn’t get better than that. Good ROI and a still a good ride. 🙂
“BC ships most of their natural gas to the US through Alberta. We bear the risk and they get most of the profit.”
Stop! Stop! You’re breaking my heart!
Oh, the humanity!
I don’t care how much infrastructure is already built. The KXL pipe has been racked in place for years. The river crossings all complete 3 years ago and still we wait.
Bongo and Notley pay lip service to pipeline projects but their real MO is the complete shut down of the oil/gas industry.
“On the other hand, Christy Clark is brilliant and savvy and a superb premier, just like her predecessor Bill Bennett.”
But, but we’re constantly being told by commenters here that only Eastern Canadian politicians are plugs and “vauriens”. You mean Western Canada – beacon of purity and enlightenment in our fair Dominion – might have wastrels at the helm too?
Say it ain’t so!
Notley has been in the anti fossil fuel and anti pipeline bag for a very long time. The NDP is FULL of anti fossil fuel crackpots. She is simply making noises for Albertans. Frankly, the Leg should be a pile of smouldering ashes now.
Boy blunder nixed this on day one
Don’t planes emit CO2?
Re: Trudeau says Bombardier has a new plane that is like REALLY good and how else will they sell it without $1 billion in government money?
What does is burn? Maple syrup?? When it’s to promote Quebec and Trudeau’s cronies, we soon forget C02 now don’t we??
More likely poutine. Higher fat content.
It would matter if the issue was saving the planet . Another tax will not control the weather . This is about putting Western Canada in what the East perceives to be its proper place in Canada .