LNG projects to test bill on environmental reviews
OTTAWA A pair of proposed natural gas projects in B.C. and Quebec will serve as the testing ground for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s new environmental assessment regime, an expanded review process that industry groups claim could hamstring major projects.
Both the Gazoduq pipeline, a key feature in a $14-billion plan to export liquefied natural gas from Saguenay, Que., and Cedar LNG, an export facility proposed for construction in Kitimat, B.C., will be subject to regulatory changes introduced under Bill C-69. They are among four initial projects that will fall under the new review process, which came into force in August.
The Trudeau government this summer passed Bill C-69, a controversial piece of legislation that expanded the regulatory review process for major projects including anything from sea ports to nuclear plants. Industry groups like the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers said the new regime would effectively bar new pipeline proposals, adding to frustrations over a decade-long bottleneck that has pinched prices for Canadian crude oil. Other groups including the Mining Association of Canada broadly supported the bill.
Both proposed natural gas projects have been met with opposition from advocacy groups, and could meet resistance from some First Nations.
The Gazoduq pipeline would tie into an existing natural gas pipeline system in Ontario and run 780 km east to the Saguenay Fjord, where GNL Québec is proposing to build a liquefaction facility. From there, roughly 11 million tonnes per year of liquefied gas would be shipped down the fjord, eventually reaching overseas markets.
Équiterre is opposed to the facility and has gathered 40,000 signatures in a bid to stop its development. The group argues the project would “put Canada even further behind in its efforts to reach its Paris Agreement target,” and emit 7.8 million tonnes of GHGs per year, according to a news release. It also argues the facility would require 160 tankers to pass through the fjord every year, critically harming local beluga whale populations.
Changes under Bill C-69 essentially call for wider environmental or social considerations in project reviews, including whether a project would cause additional GHG emissions.
Proponents have long sold LNG as a cleaner alternative to coalfired power sources in Asia and elsewhere, and would allow for global GHG reductions.
(Gazoduq pipeline was) designed to be compatible with ... energy and climate policies.
In its initial project description, the Quebec-based company says the pipeline was “designed to be compatible with provincial, Canadian and international energy and climate policies,” and would “facilitate an energy transition.”
Meanwhile the other project, Cedar LNG, is led by the Haisla First Nation and would export up to four million tonnes per year of liquefied natural gas from a floating dock near Kitimat, B.C.
Proponents say the project would be fed by the Coastal GasLink, taking in natural gas from plays in northern B.C. and exporting it to Asia.
The Haisla have not released an estimated cost for the project.
The facility would be built near the $39-billion LNG Canada project, which was given the green light by the feds in December 2018 and is currently under construction.
The Cedar LNG project, for its part, will cut through the traditional lands of a handful of Indigenous communities.
In its project description the group says the facility has the “potential to cause adverse effects to marine and freshwater fish.”