ATLANTIC CANADA LNG
Mike Priaro, P. Eng.
First uploaded February 22, 2019
Liquefied natural gas (LNG) is created by the cooling of natural gas to -160 degC where it becomes a liquid that can be stored in insulated tanks and efficiently transported by ship, rail or truck. LNG is odorless, colorless, non-toxic and non-corrosive. It can easily be converted back (re-gasified) to gaseous natural gas simply by warming it.
THE LNG PROJECTS
Bear Head LNG’s proposed 8 million tonne/yr (1.1 bcf/d) LNG export terminal, at Point Tupper on the Strait of Canso NS, has approval from Canada's NEB to import natural gas from the U.S. and to export up to 12 million tonne/yr.
Goldboro LNG’S proposed 10 million tonne/yr (1.3 bcf/d) LNG export project is located adjacent to the Maritimes & Northeast Pipeline system, an Enbridge Inc. (77.53%), Emera Inc. (12.92%), and ExxonMobil (9.55%) joint venture, built to transport natural gas between Nova Scotia, Atlantic Canada and the northeastern United States.
Énergie Saguenay has proposed an 11 million tonne/yr (1.45 bcf/d) LNG export terminal, on Saguenay Port Authority lands adjacent to the existing Grande-Anse port facilities, to export LNG from Alberta and BC natural gas supplied by the proposed Gazoduc pipeline.
Gazoduq, a Quebec-based company which owns Trans Québec & Maritimes Pipeline Inc.—owned equally by 9265-0860 Québec Inc. (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Gaz Métro Limited Partnership) and TransCanada (now TC Energy), has announced plans to construct a natural gas pipeline from TransCanada’s Mainline in NE Ontario 750-km across northern Quebec to Saguenay, QC.
THE NATURAL GAS PIPELINES
There are a number of options to get natural gas to Atlantic Canada:
1. Reverse the existing, unused Maritimes & Northeast pipeline to transport northeast U.S. shale gas to Nova Scotia.
2. Extend the existing TransCanada pipeline in Quebec to transport Alberta and B.C. gas to Saguenay and Nova Scotia.
3. TransCanada has asked federal regulators for permission to sign new long-term supply contracts to ship gas from Western Canada through existing pipelines to eastern markets, including Atlantic Canada. With no pipeline link between the rest of Canada and the Maritimes, the natural gas would move on TransCanada's Canadian mainline to Quebec, then cross the border to travel through U.S. lines in New England. It would then travel back into Canada and Nova Scotia via the M&NE pipeline that links this region to the U.S.
4. Build the Gazoduc natural gas pipeline to transport Alberta and B.C. natural gas 750-km from the TransCanada Mainline in northeastern Ontario through northern Quebec to Saguenay, QC.
5. By far the best option is to lay new oil and natural gas pipelines at the same time in an all-Canadian Energy East corridor to Saguenay and to Atlantic Canada thereby saving billions in construction costs, minimizing ecological disruption, and packaging the GHG-reducing LNG projects with crude oil transmission.
THE ENVIRONMENTAL BENEFITS OF LNG
Wherever natural gas exported as LNG displaces coal used in power generation and in other industrial uses, GHG emissions are cut in half. One source ascribes 38% of global CO2 emissions from human sources as originating from coal in 2014.
In addition, almost all the hazardous-to-health and hazardous to the ecology air pollution produced by coal burning—particulates, soot, heavy metals, sulphur dioxide—is eliminated when coal is replaced by clean natural gas from LNG.
OUR NATIONAL GOALS
Canada needs to provide domestic supplies of crude oil and natural gas to Atlantic Canada. ExxonMobil shut down production from the Sable Offshore Energy Project on January 1, 2019. Though the closure was announced well in advance, the end of Sable output leaves New Brunswick and Nova Scotia without any Canadian natural gas supplies. They are now fully dependent on either pipelined natural gas from the U.S. Northeast or imported volumes of LNG into the Canaport Energy terminal in New Brunswick. It's bad enough Atlantic Canada is reliant on imported crude, recently most of it from the U.S.
Build sufficient low-carbon hydropower to power the extraction, processing, transmission and liquefaction of natural gas to LNG thereby making Canadian LNG the greenest on earth.
Eliminate the burning of almost 4 billion cu. ft./day of natural gas used for process heat and electricity in the oil sands for bitumen extraction, field processing, upgrading, refining and pipelines.Instead, use the natural gas for LNG exports to reduce, not increase, domestic and global GHG emissions.
Create cross-country energy corridors to access tide-water on both the east and west coasts for the efficient transmission, marketing, and export of Canada’s immense natural resources to diverse international markets.
Mike Priaro, P. Eng.
Calgary
403-281-2156
