Surging supply means BC LNG won’t bring in as much cash as province predicts: report
Posted July 10, 2014 12:40 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – Given the scale of liquefied natural gas production worldwide, BC needs to speed up the process here or miss out altogether.
That’s what researchers from the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy are saying in a new report.
“Whether or not the market is viable depends on whether or not we can collectively act to access it in an appropriate level of time,” says study co-author Michael C. Moore.
By the time BC’s LNG projects finally get up and running, they will have missed out on a vital window of opportunity, as other producers beat BC to market, according to the report.
“If you don’t get [to Asia] by as late as 2022, 2014, you might as well start building your infrastructure to deal with domestic demand instead of international, Pacific Basin demand because someone else will be there ahead of you,” says Moore.
Moore says it’s unlikely the $100-billion LNG prosperity fund projected by Christy Clark’s government is realistic if BC misses that window.
“If you’re not engaging in active contracts by 2018 or so, you’re certainly disenfranchised relative to other countries, other interests, getting out into that market,” he argues.
“Basically, if you miss a window that’s not longer than about 10 years forward, it’s not that our gas isn’t viable, it’s not that our cost of production is not competitive, but we can’t construct something fast enough and in a high enough volume if we only have one, maybe two, ports that we’re shipping out of.”
