Why Canada may have missed the boat on building a viable LNG industry – by Claudia Cattaneo (Financial Post – May 6, 2017)

http://business.financialpost.com/

“The company now owns the only LNG project out of the 20 or so proposed for
the B.C. coast that is poised for takeoff. The rest are on hold, being
restructured or dropped, casualties of snail-paced government decision-
making, tough regulations, environmental and aboriginal opposition, and
changing market conditions, while the United States has already forged
a formidable LNG industry of its own.”

SQUAMISH, B.C. — The race to build a liquefied natural gas industry in British Columbia has had many twists and turns this decade and could be headed for another sharp one if the May 9 provincial election results in a change in government. But one of the oddest is found by taking a boat across Howe Sound — a network of spectacular fjords just north of Vancouver — to an abandoned pulp mill site on the traditional territory of the Squamish Nation.

The tranquil area, flanked by mountains and accessible only by water or helicopter, used to house a bustling community of nearly 1,000 people who toiled in one of Canada’s busiest mills, known as Woodfibre, complete with staff housing, bowling alleys and even churches.

The mill was shut down in 2006 after a century of operation, leaving behind significant environmental damage; a cluster of buildings including an ample warehouse, an old power station and storm-damaged docks that either had to be fixed or demolished; and an aboriginal community motivated to see its ancestral land cleaned up and put to good use.

A company that has become known as Woodfibre LNG Ltd. identified the fixer-upper as the ideal location to build a $1.6-billion liquefied natural gas plant, went all out to get support from the surrounding community, and worked out a trailblazing partnership with the Squamish Nation that involved Canada’s first environmental assessment by an aboriginal community.

The company now owns the only LNG project out of the 20 or so proposed for the B.C. coast that is poised for takeoff. The rest are on hold, being restructured or dropped, casualties of snail-paced government decision-making, tough regulations, environmental and aboriginal opposition, and changing market conditions, while the United States has already forged a formidable LNG industry of its own.

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