While there may be five LNG terminals proposed for the north coast, including three in Kitimat and two in Prince Rupert, Skeena – Bulkley Valley MP Nathan Cullen said he doubts five terminals will be built.
“If you talk to people in the industry, they feel there is room for two or three terminals to be built,” he said, noting that his support for the projects is on a case-by-case basis.
“There’s isn’t a blanket statement for something like LNG... If you say you’re for all of them, would you allow 10 or 15 projects to come into the region? No. You have to look at where the energy is coming from and the capacity of the area to handle it. The companies also have to show that their proposal is a good project.”
Right now both the Progress Energy and BG Group export terminals are in the very preliminary stages of development, while all three projects planned for Kitimat have received their LNG export licenses from the provincial government. Cullen said that could play a role in which proposals come to fruition.
“There is a bit of a question of timing. If you have the papers and are more advanced in the project you are in a better position than those that don’t,” he said.
“I don’t know how the licenses in Kitimat would effect the proposals in Prince Rupert.”
Greg Kist, vice-president of marketing, government and corporate communications for Pacific Northwest LNG, the proponents of the Lelu Island terminal, said the number of projects and which projects develop depends on much more than their current status.
“I think it is really a function of how the international markets grow... Growth means more natural gas will be needed, and some of that can be filled domestically. Whether the rest is satisfied by Australia, Quataar or Canada comes down to a question of economics,” he said.
“If you look at all of the components of the project — the resource, the pipeline and the market — you have the resources of our parent company Petronas and our Progress Energy holdings in the Montney area of northeastern B.C. Clearly we have all the component parts for a successful project, though there is certainly a significant amount of work still to be done.”