Delay costs B.C. LNG billions: Fraser Institute

Regulatory delays in the production of B.C. liquefied natural gas could lead to the potential loss of $11 billion per year after 2020 — even if B.C. would have only gained a sliver of the Asia-Pacific market, according to research from the Fraser Institute.

Kenneth Green, senior director of natural resource studies, based his research on potential B.C. production figures from projects already approved by the National Energy Board.

He found that if placed alongside the biggest LNG exporters in the world as identified by the International Energy Agency, B.C.’s 10 projects combined could poise the province as the largest producer of them all — with the capability to provide 185.5 billion cubic metres of the gas per year, according to IEA numbers.

The IEA’s 2015 projections suggest that by 2020, the largest exporter in the world will be Australia, if they export just 120 billion cubic metres per year. The reason B.C. isn’t on that list already is because IEA reports Canadian LNG projects would not be ready to start production by 2020.

Based on B.C.’s potential, Green suggested that at minimum B.C. should be able to capture 5.5-10% of the Asia-Pacific LNG market, or about 25 billion cubic metres of demand per year.

The problem is production isn’t ready, or B.C. would be able to cash in.

Green pointed out one weakness in his research in that it assumes all projects must go online by 2020.

“We’ve been hearing a lot of concern that B.C. is going to miss its window of opportunity to capitalize on its energy resources,” Green said.

“We wanted to see if we could put some numbers on it.”

https://vancouver.24hrs.ca/2015/09/22/delay-costs-bc-lng-billions-fraser-institute