[Azure]

If we get Quebec onboard the LNG train, Trudeau will go for it.

The CEO of a Quebec-based oil and gas company is calling out Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's claim that there has "never been a strong business case" for liquefied natural gas exports from Canada's East Coast to Europe.

Mario Lévesque, chief executive of Utica Resources, says the rationale for exporting natural gas from Quebec is "crystal clear," and would generate "tens of billions in royalties and taxes" for Ottawa.

Lévesque's comments follow an energy-focused tour of Canada by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who was accompanied by a delegation of business leaders from Europe's largest economy. The three-day trip saw the two nations reach agreements on hydrogen and electric vehicle battery minerals.

Lévesque is not alone in criticizing Trudeau's business case assessment. Kevin Krausert is CEO and co-founder of Avatar Innovations, a Calgary-based venture capital firm and startup accelerator that pairs entrepreneurs with the biggest companies in Canada's energy patch. He says the business case is "a lot stronger and a lot faster than our Prime Minister suggests."

"Today, you have an existing, operating LNG import terminal in New Brunswick operated by Repsol, the Spanish super major, that could be turned around quickly," he told Yahoo Finance Canada's Editor's Edition. "There's a lot of gas on the East Coast that (we) wouldn't have to transport that far."

https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/tr...170144276.html

It could well represent one of the biggest missed opportunities in Canadian history: An embattled Europe is clamouring for natural gas, and one of the world’s biggest producers of the stuff can’t sell it to them.

The economic hit is overwhelming: At current prices, even just one Canadian port exporting liquid natural gas could be adding nine figures to the Canadian GDP each day. Politically, Canada could be helping to deal a body blow to Russian hegemony over Western European energy. Instead, on both fronts, Ottawa appears content to watch from the sidelines.

Canada ranks 15th in the world for proven natural gas reserves, and is the planet’s fifth largest producer of natural gas. The problem is infrastructure.

There isn’t a single LNG export terminal in Canada. Every single liter of natural gas that Canada manages to export all goes to the United States via pipeline.

This hasn’t been for lack of trying. Natural Resources Canada notes that in recent years it has received proposals for 18 LNG export projects, including five on the East Coast. Just one of them is under construction, while another is not quite poised to break ground.

While it’s unlikely that all 18 were economically viable, Canada’s regulatory framework is notorious at scaring away energy projects. Just in February, a $10-billion LNG export facility planned for Saguenay, Que. was rejected by the Quebec and federal governments largely on the grounds that it would increase greenhouse-gas emissions.

Notably, every single one of the now-languishing East Coast projects were in the planning stages as early as 2015, meaning it’s not infeasible that in a less Byzantine regulatory climate at least one of them could have already been coming online.

In an interview this week, Enbridge CEO Al Monaco hinted at Canada’s infamous latticework of energy industry red tape when he said the country needs to “get out of our own way when it comes to energy and building infrastructure.”

And the odyssey doesn’t end even for projects that manage to jump through Canada’s regulatory hoops. One need only to look at the political nightmare that has accompanied the construction of the LNG Canada terminal in Kitimat, B.C. Upon its scheduled completion in 2025, it will become Canada’s only port serving LNG carrier ships.

This has all shaped up to be a uniquely Canadian story. In other LNG hubs such as the Australia and the United States, the last few years have been defined by a multi-billion-dollar energy boom.

Australia spent the 2010s constructing nearly a dozen LNG export terminals to capitalize on an Asian push to adopt the fuel as a substitute for coal. In the first six months of 2022, LNG exports earned Australia the equivalent of $150 million per day.

The continental U.S. only began exporting LNG in 2016. Now — with a handful of new export facilities coming online in 2022 alone — they’re on track to become the world’s largest single exporter of the fuel.

It’s why, within weeks of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the United States was able to respond by boosting its LNG exports to unprecedented levels.

https://vancouversun.com/news/canada...box=1661353899

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