Adam Pankratz: Natural gas is the elephant in the room that Trudeau and Scholz are ignoring

Special to National Post - 

This week, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is visiting Canada. Many items will be on his agenda with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau but one critical item is blatantly missing: liquified natural gas. Failure to discuss an LNG deal during this meeting is a further demonstration of a wanton and failing energy policy from both sides. The only question is, who is worse? The one whose country is currently paying €250 per megawatt hour for gas (more than 10 times what it was last year) or the one whose country is sitting on trillions of cubic meters of the stuff, yet can’t get it to market?


© Provided by National PostPipes at a natural gas plant near Fort St. John, B.C., Thursday, Oct. 11, 2018.

Canada’s proven gas reserves as of 2020 amounted to 2.4 trillion (yes, with a “T”) cubic meters of gas. That’s 83 trillion cubic feet if you prefer imperial. We also produce 165 billion cubic meters of gas annually, making us the fifth largest producer of gas in the world. Yet, despite our incredible reserves and large production we fail time and time again to get market value for our product.

Current price differentials in the LNG market boggle the mind. AECO, the Alberta or Canadian reference price, has fluctuated between $4 and $5 per gigajoule in recent months, most recently dropping below $2. They could even turn negative in September. Meanwhile, in the United States, the reference price of Henry Hub currently sits at a touch over $12 or US$9/MMBtu. While this differential may be enough to drive Canadian producers mad, it pales in comparison to what Europe is paying for gas with current prices over the equivalent of $90/MMBtu.

The reason for this differential blowout is simple: Canada lacks the infrastructure to get our gas to the world. With Canada’s LNG unable to be exported due to lack of pipelines and terminals our gas is held captive by our own domestic market. Our LNG should be transported all over the world to get the highest price but right now it remains largely trapped within our borders. Since Russia’s Ukraine invasion oil and gas prices worldwide have risen enormously. But in Europe, gas prices have soared more than anything else because of the lack of supply options other than Russia. Europe deserves heavy blame for their lack of gas substitutes and Europeans will suffer heavily this winter because of bad political judgement, particularly in Germany.

Canada may not have been able to affect European decision making but we do control our own destiny. Regardless, in past years, governments have shirked and ignored the huge LNG opportunity for enviro-political gain.

In British Columbia, there were multiple LNG projects proposed in recent years, but ultimately only one, with much delay and struggle — LNG Canada — has made it through the province’s byzantine regulatory and consultation process. Still not complete, LNG Canada will allow Canadian gas to access the world market for the first time, ever. On the East Coast there is no LNG export terminal, despite multiple attempts to build one. In February, Ottawa nixed Énergie Saguenay’s proposed LNG facility, which had been in the works since 2014. It was crushed just in time to watch Russia invade Ukraine two weeks later and use gas as an economic weapon.

We can bowdlerize with polite insinuations of a missed LNG opportunity, but the reality is that Canada’s performance on LNG has been short-sighted, ideological, unrealistic and foolish. There has been little concrete leadership by politicians who have more broadly preferred a starry-eyed, half baked approach to LNG policy discussions. Oil and gas are not disappearing anytime soon and it’s time Canadian policy started to reflect that reality.

Even those resistant to oil should be able to recognize that LNG is the next enormous economic opportunity for Canada. LNG is the bridge fuel which can replace coal, while producing at least 40 per cent fewer emissions than coal and about 25 per cent less than oil. This gives us a cleaner burning alternative as we transition (over decades) towards fully renewable energy. If there is a more economically and environmentally compelling argument in the world today, I have not seen it.

But there is also a moral and societal argument here in Canada as well. That argument is the huge economic opportunity LNG represents for First Nations communities in Canada, and particularly in British Columbia. LNG Canada and the Coastal Gas Link (CGL) will bring in billions of dollars in royalties and jobs to these communities. Multiple Indigenous leaders have spoken on the importance of this issue for their communities, including Crystal Smith of the Haisla Nation, Karen Ogen-Toews, CEO of the First Nations LNG Alliance, and Ellis Ross, Haisla member and MLA for Skeena.

LNG is here to stay as an important energy source for longer than many unrealistic politicians would like to admit. For over a century we have been using fossil fuels to grow and prosper; that will not change overnight. LNG will have a decades-long run ahead as a reliable, transition fuel. This is an opportunity Canada cannot miss. We must develop, in conjunction with indigenous communities, more pipelines, more gas wells and more LNG export terminals so that our precious resources find equitable prices in the growing world market. Any politician who can’t find space for an LNG discussion in their agenda today is woefully failing their citizens.

Adam Pankratz is a lecturer at the University of British Columbia’s Sauder School of Business and is on the board of directors of Rokmaster Resources.