Natural gas megaproject in B.C. fuels global boom
Feds to roll out nationwide carbon-tax program
Watch for the approval earlier this month of the LNG Canada megaproject to kick off a global building boom in new liquefied natural gas export facilities.
A lengthy slump in world gas prices had given the $40-billion (U.S.) LNG Canada the appearance of a fantasy, in a world energy market where long-term planning horizons of 20 years and more routinely consign high-profile projects to a drawer after their indefinite postponement.
But LNG prices broke out of their 2015-2017 price funk last winter and have since stabilized at a four-year high.
Once again, China figures into a world business trend: That country’s Beijingmandated conversion from coal to gas has driven demand — and prices — so powerfully upward that 2019 will see a record number of LNG projects greenlighted.
The new LNG terminals will be built and become operational with unusual speed because most were planned years ago, awaiting the current forecast of sustained increased demand.
That forecast is for an increase in demand of between 25 per cent and 55 per cent by 2023 — in just five years’ time.
So the wraps have come off LNG projects this year in the U.S., with still more U.S. projects certain to be approved in 2019. Other huge LNG facilities will be approved in 2019 in Qatar, Russia and Mozambique.
LNG Canada, centred on an $18-billion (U.S.) marine terminal in Kitimat, B.C., will employ more than 4,500 people during its construction phase, and
950 permanent workers once exports to Asian markets commence by 2025.
While gas is a fossil fuel that contributes to global warming, it is much more environmentally benign than the coal it will, in most cases, be replacing. ATrump brand name in value decline
Expect more Trump-branded properties to follow the example last week of condo owners at Trump Place at 200 Riverside Blvd. in Manhattan’s pricey Upper West Side voting to remove U.S. President Donald Trump’s surname from the façade of their building.
That makes at least seven hotel and condo properties to drop their Trump branding since the contentious 2016 U.S. presidential election that put Donald Trump in the White House.
In 2017, the then-Trump International Hotel and Tower, a 65-storey Toronto landmark, cut its ties with the Trump Organization, the New Yorkbased holding company for the Trump family’s business interests.
The Toronto property, initially operated and partly owned by the Trump Organization, was plagued with financial difficulties almost from its opening in 2012.
Now operated by Marriott International, it is to be rebranded next year with the Marriott luxury banner St. Regis.
The Trump Organization’s troubles in Toronto turned out to be a harbinger for the developer’s entire portfolio. Besides Toronto, hotels and condo complexes in Panama and elsewhere in Manhattan have also ended their Trump affiliation.
Trump-branded properties, including one in Vancouver, have become a target for protesters angry with the U.S. president’s policies, a phenomenon that began in earnest with Trump’s ban on immigrants from Muslim-majority countries.
Discomfort among condo residents with protesters has prompted most of the severed ties with Trump Organization.
Property management and ownership are minor factors at Trump Organization, which has long derived most of its revenue from simply licensing the Trump name.
So, while the company is a private firm with opaque finances, it can be surmised its fortunes are in decline with the eroding value of its brand.
Carbon tax politics
So far, four provinces are repudiating Ottawa’s avowed imposition of carbon-pricing regimes in all 10 provinces.
But while Ottawa’s opponents on the issue have been vocal, the Trudeau government has mostly kept its views to itself.
That is a classic strategy: don’t respond until you’ve heard the broad sweep of opposing points.
A federal election campaign expected next year is the Trudeau government’s opportunity to aggressively pitch Canadians on the merits of carbon pricing, something it hasn’t done since unveiling its carbon-pricing policy.
There is, to start, near unanimity among climate-change experts that no substantial progress can be made on global warming without putting a price on carbon emissions. And the Trudeau government’s policy is “revenue neutral” as it remits back to residents of each province every nickel collected there.
That upends the rallying cries
of Ontario Premier Doug Ford and his Saskatchewan counterpart, Scott Moe, that carbon pricing is a tax grab.
On the campaign hustings, the Liberals will declare that Ford wants to take away the $532 cheque Ottawa will cut for every Canadian family of four in carbon-pricing rebates, a sum that rises as the carbon levy does. (From $20 a tonne of CO2 emissions to $50 over three years.)
Alberta will proceed with its carbon-pricing plan if Ottawa makes progress on the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion.
And business lobbies protesting that companies are excluded from the rebates can be appeased by including them.
Meanwhile, business is not a united front in its opposition. In a report last week, the business-backed C.D. Howe Institute asserted that “Carbon pricing continues to be the most cost-effective option for achieving emissions reductions across the country.”