Kitimat | Northwest Coast Energy News

Egyptian LNG terminal is model for Kitimat project: Encana

Energy

The rugged, rocky, windswept shoreline of Douglas Channel and Kitimat harbour are very different from the Nile Delta, a gigantic flat estuary, so much bigger than the Kildala or Giltoyees, warm, on the Mediterranean, a cradle of human civilization.

KBR, the main contractor for the Kitimat LNG project front end engineering, is basing its planning for the Kitimat terminal on a project it built in Egypt, Dave Thorn, Encana Vice President of Canadian Marketing told an investor conference call on Tuesday, Oct, 4, 2011.

Thorn told the call that plans for the Kitimat terminal are based on the “Seagas” terminal in Damietta, (also known as Dumyat) Egypt, 60 kilometres west of Port Said on the Nile Delta.

The terminal is used to export liquified natural gas from fields in Egypt to customers in Spain.

In 2000, what was then Haliburton KBR was given the contract for front-end engineering and design (FEED) through a joint venture in Egypt, Damietta LNG Construction Llc. The joint venture later got the contract to build the LNG terminal complex.

The terminal is formally called SEGAS, an acronym for the Spanish Egyptian Gas Company.

According to the Wikipedia entry, the output capacity of the plant is 5 million tons of LNG per year. The complex includes the LNG liquefaction train, inlet gas reception area (metering and analysis), natural gas liquids removal and fractionation area, a docking jetty for tanker loading and transportation, LNG refrigerated storage and export facilities (tanks and booms), utilities and supporting infrastructure (power, water and roads), gas metering and treatment facilities (acid gas removal and dehydration), refrigerant condensate and LNG storage (two 150,000 m³ PC LNG storage tanks). The total investment costs of the LNG complex were around US$1.3 billion.

Unlike Kitimat, where the natural gas will come from the Horn River Basin, the natural gas in Egypt is close to the terminal, in large fields under the Nile Delta. The plant is supplied by natural gas from the West Delta Deep Marine Concession Area about 140 kilometres (90 mi) from the LNG complex.

About 3.2 million tons of LNG is sold to Unión Fenosa Gas which has a receiving terminal at Sagunto, Spain. The rest is sold on the open market by the Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company.

View Larger Map

In ancient history the port was known as Tarniat, It was later overshadowed by the growth of nearby Alexandria. From seventh to the twelfth centuries, under Muslim caliphs, Diamietta was both an important naval base and an import point for goods from as far away as China. Today, in addition to the LNG terminal, it has a major container port.

KBR, formerly Kellogg Brown and Root has been involved in construction, mostly in the energy industry, for more than a century. For many years the company was part of the Haliburton empire, but was spun off in 2007 and is now headquartered in Houston, Texas.
The company was recently involved in a number of scandals and lawsuits, mainly tied to its role as a prime contractor for the US military in Iraq.

China biggest customer for Kitimat LNG: Encana

Energy

China is probably the largest long
term customer for liquified natural gas that will be shipped through
the port of Kitimat, executives from Encana, one of the three
partners in the KM LNG project said in an investor conference call
Tuesday, Oct. 4, 2011.

India could also be big customer for
LNG shipped from the Horn River in northeastern BC through Kitimat,
Encana said.

Although Japan will be increasing its
purchases of liquified natural gas in the coming years, the immediate
situation with Japan is less certain. While the March 2011
earthquake and tsunami knocked out the Fukishima nuclear plant and
prompted Japan to scale back other nuclear plants and increase LNG
purchases, Encana says the country has still not come up with any
definite policies

Dave Thorn, Encana vice president of
Canadian marketing, who also oversees the Encana’s role in the
Kitimat project, said that China’s overseas imports now account for
eight per cent of its purchases of natural gas. That is expected to
rise to 10 per cent in the next few years. Thorn said there is a big
gap between current LNG contracts and what Encana says is long term
demand from China. He speculated that there could be increasing
demand from China during the 20 years or so the Kitimat LNG project
is exporting LNG. ( As well as projected population and
manufacturing growth, even in a weak economy, China is now heavily
dependent on coal, but is also investing in “green” projects
which means there could eventually be a switch from coal to natural
gas).

The fact that one giant Chinese
customer, PetroChina, pulled out of a deal with Encana earlier this
year doesn’t seem to be a setback. Thorn said that there is strong
interest from at least six unnamed major customers for LNG to be
shipped through Kitimat. “The expression of interest ranged from
simply LNG supply to existing or planned regasification facilities
through to participation all along the value chain from shipping,
equity interest in the Kitimat facility as well as upstream
participation,” Thorn said.

The Kitimat project is currently
undergoing a front end engineering evaluation by KBR. There is a
similar study under way on the Pacific Trails Pipeline that could
carry the natural gas to the terminal. Both studies are expected to
be complete by the end of 2011. Encana expects the National Energy
Board to approve KM LNG’s application for an export licence in
December. Encana and its partners, Apache Corporation and EOG
Resources, expect to make a final investment decision in January
2012.

If all goes as planned the Kitimat
terminal would be shipping 700 million cubic feet of natural gas a
day to Asia when the terminal begins operations in 2015. Encana and
its partners are already optimistic, talking about plans to double
capacity to to 1.5 billion cubic feet a day in the coming years.

What’s driving much of this is the
high price of natural gas in Asia, which is pegged to the price of
oil, compared to North America where natural gas prices are
determined by the marketplace. With shale gas increasingly abundant
the price on this continent has been dropping and that has affected
the bottom lines and stock prices of Encana and other natural gas
producers. Encana is also bolstering its bottom line by tapping
“liquid-rich reserves” (oil and natural gas) that may be found
in the areas where they are currently pumping natural gas.

The Horn River Basin area in
northeastern BC was a surprise discovery by an Encana crew in 2003,
said Kevin Smith, Encana Vice President of New Ventures. The company
then began to quietly acquire assets, either by buying land or by
leasing in the region. “The Horn River resource base is enormous,
highly accessible and will certainly play a large role in North
American and even global gas supply in the years to come,” Smith
told the conference call.

During the June NEB hearings in
Kitimat, witnesses described the Horn River formation as special but
were reluctant to go into detail. Smith said the shale in the Horn River
is “all the attributes for high productivity,” including large
reserves and “overpressured system” which helps extraction. “It
keeps getting better and better.”

As well as going west to Asia, natural
gas from Encana’s Horn River assets will go east to Alberta to fuel
bitumen sands production which Smith said will require an additional
1.3 billion cubic feet a day by 2020, This is likely to be
controversial with the environmental groups and bitumen sands
opponents who have always taken issue with the idea that clean
natural gas would be burned to help get crude of the dirtier bitumen
sands.

Encana says it has developed a “hub”
system in the Horn River where a central well site can use horizontal
drilling to tap areas where once many wells would have been needed.

“Fracking” or fracturing shale gas
requires large amounts of water. As was pointed out in the June
hearings in Kitimat, Encana has tapped an ancient, underground alt
water reservoir called Debolt which allows it to reuse the water from
the formation and minimizing use of local fresh water.

British Columbia is helping the shale
gas industry with favourable royalties in the northeast including
royalty credits for building infrastructure in the region.

Encana, however, is under pressure
from inflation. It faces rising costs from steel, labour and all
kinds of services. While it supplies the bitumen sands with natural
gas, it is also in competition with the Fort MacMurray area for
supplies and labour.

Encana conference call to update Kitimat, Horn River developments

Energy

Encana, one of the three partners in the KM LNG (Kitimat LNG project) will hold a conference call for executives and a simultaneous webcast, Tuesday, Oct. 4 at 9 a.m. MT, 8 a.m. PT to update on its Horn River shale gas development and also Encana’s view of the Kitimat project. Encana’s partners are Apache Corp. and EOG.

A news release from Encana says

Encana Corporation (TSX, NYSE: ECA) will hold a conference call and
webcast for the investment community highlighting its Horn River
resource play on Tuesday, October 4, 2011 at 9:00 a.m. MT (11:00 a.m.
ET). The presentation will be hosted by members of Encana’s senior
management team and will include information detailing the company’s
strategy, resource play hub development model and operations in the Horn
River play, as well information on the Kitimat LNG project.
A live webcast of the conference call will also be available via Encana’s website, www.encana.com, under Investors/Presentations & events, or directly at the following

URL:

Webcast link:
http://w.on24.com/r.htm?e=361512&s=1&k=56F984CEC6C224CE4C59E3D7FE8C9CB8

The Calgary Herald is speculating that Encana may be either selling some assets or announce that it has found development partners. For those in the know in the Alberta oil patch the sudden announcement has people in Calgary wondering what the announcement will be.

The Herald also quotes one analyst as wondering what is holding up the Kitimat LNG project.

Phil Skolnick of Canaccord Genuity said he’s hoping for “some clarity” on where the company is at in the joint venture process, as well as what’s preventing Kitimat LNG from moving full-steam ahead.

“What are the essential bottlenecks?” Skolnick wondered

Editor’s note:
With all the activity around town it’s certainly a surprise to hear the Kitimat project isn’t going “full steam ahead.” As far as Northwest Energy News is concerned if there were bottlenecks on the project at this end, the ever vigilant Kitimat rumour mill which has been churning another possible LNG project for more than a week now, would certainly have heard about it. Perhaps it is simply all the unusually stormy weather we’ve been having all summer has slowed things down.

Will propane be added to the Kitimat’s “hot” energy scene?

Energy Link

The energy industry monitor Argus Media speculated Tuesday that propane could be added to Kitimat’s energy scene, as an ingredient to upgrade the natural gas that will be exported to Asia.

In Propane market ponders ‘hot’ LNG potential of Kitimat Argus says propane traders are keeping a close eye on the proposed liguified natural gas projects in Kitimat.

Argus says;

Many Asian countries that buy LNG –
including Japan – have higher Btu standards for their gas, which can be
achieved by adding propane to create so-called “hot” LNG.

Propane can be added to the LNG either at the import facility to
enrich supply to the country’s Btu standard or at the export facility
before the LNG goes to market.

Depending on supply contracts and pricing, it could make sense to add
propane to LNG produced at Kitimat, and such a move might impact the
long-term NGL market in western Canada, traders said.

BTU, or British Thermal Units is a way of measuring the energy out put of the natural gas.

Apache spokesman Bill Mintz told Argus that the ideas about propane being added to the Kitimat energy mix was premature speculation.

We’re not afraid of Kitimat, Oregon rivals say, as papers filed for LNG export terminal permit

Energy

The Jordan Cove Energy Project, often cited by energy industry experts as Kitimat’s chief west coast rival as a liquified natural gas export project, sent a $50 filing fee to the United States Treasury on Friday, thus notifying the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that the company is seeking to export liquified natural gas from its planned $3.5 billion terminal at Coos Bay, Oregon.

Although testimony at June’s National Energy Board hearings cited Coos Bay as a rival that could take LNG business away from Kitimat, the view from Oregon appears to be just the opposite.

Jordan Cove project manager Robert Braddock told the industry newsletter, Platt’s Gas, that he is “not afraid of competition from the north, where Kitimat LNG is planning an export terminal in British Columbia. ‘We actually presume that Kitimat would be built,” Braddock said. “We assume that we would be built number two and we think there is plenty of room for two such facilities on the West Coast.’

Braddock also told Platt’s that Oregon is not a rival for BC or Alberta gas nor competition for LNG terminals in Louisiana and Maryland. “The principal difference is we have access to a different range of resources from both Canadian gas and US gas. But equally important is we would have certainly much closer access to the Asian markets,” he said.

The Oregonian newspaper reported that prospective customers in Asia for the Coos Bay project may be waiting to see what happens in Kitimat before signing on with Jordan Cove. Braddock told the Oregonian that the company “is still testing the waters with potential customers, and won’t go ahead with the expensive and byzantine permitting process without firm commitments from terminal users.”

The pro forma initial application filed Friday informs the US Department of Energy that company wants to export up natural gas to countries that have a free trade agreements with the United States. Similar to the National Energy Board hearings on KM LNG, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission must now hold hearings on the export licence application.

In another similarity, a few years ago, the Kitimat plans called for an LNG project to import gas. Jordan Cove received approval in 2009 to build a terminal to import LNG and to build a 370 kilometre (280 mile) pipeline that would carry the gas to Malin, Oregon, on the California border.

If the US Department of Energy approves the new application, the terminal would become an export, not an import, facility.

In another parallel with Kitimat, like the Enbridge Northern Gateway Project bitumen export proposal, the Coos Bay project has prompted stiff opposition for years. The Oregonian reports “landowners and environmentalists in the region mounted a fierce campaign to block three proposals to build LNG import terminals in Oregon, including the one in Coos Bay,” in the belief that the terminals and associated pipelines would harm forests, farms and salmon habitat. The newspaper also says that local business groups and unions have supported the import projects, which would bring jobs and tax revenue.

An environmental lawyer, Susan Jane Brown, a staff attorney at the Western Environmental
Law Center, told Platt’s Gas she is still digesting the news, but that said the export
plan will likely rankle her clients, environmental organizations and
landowners. “It would be one thing to
import a good that would be used domestically. But exporting a
domestic product that they have long advocated that we need
domestically, it is a bait and switch,” she told Platt’s.

A powerful local politician, Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat is skeptical of the idea of exporting LNG from the US and told the Oregonian: “I think it’s premature to conclude that the United States now has so much natural gas that it can afford to export it overseas…I think there ought to be a time-out on approving LNG exports until there is a better understanding of how much natural gas there is, whether it can be safely extracted, and what the impact on the U.S. economy would be from LNG exports.”

Sen. Wyden’s opposition is in stark contract with the various consultants and economists who testified at the Kitimat hearings in June which envisioned a totally integrated North American natural gas marketplace with pipes snaking all over the continent delivering the cheapest and most convenient gas to the nearest market. Wyden’s remarks may be an indication that American politics could put the break on the ideal free market visions of the experts that were expressed before the NEB.

Similar to plans to take shale gas from the Horn River Formation in northeastern BC, Jordan Cove would tap into the Ruby Pipleline, a 1,000 kilometre (680-mile), 42-inch diameter that would carry shale gas from the Rockies to a hub in Wyoming and then to Malin, Oregon to connect with the Jordan Cove pipeline there.

Links: World hunger for LNG on the rise

Energy Links

Alberta Oil
The clock is ticking on West Coast LNG shipments Nuclear outages in Japan stoke Canadian export plans

The uptick in LNG consumption is potentially good news for a suite of liquefaction plants taking shape on the northwest coast of British Columbia. Japan is one of several potential sales targets for the Apache Canada Ltd.-led Kitimat LNG project, which is currently awaiting approval from the National Energy Board to begin shipping five million tonnes of the stuff annually from a new facility at Bish Cove. Liquefied gas costs spiked 33 per cent after the March 11 quake, Bloomberg reports, and they may rise higher yet.

Competition will be stiff. Canadian forays into LNG will rub shoulders with the likes of ExxonMobil, BG Group Plc and Qatargas, among others, who are likewise clamoring to deliver chilled gas to a power market in need. Just 16 of the country’s 54 reactors were online last month, according to the International Energy Agency. (That’s no small figure, as the atom currently meets 27 per cent of the island’s electricity needs).

Financial Post
LNG on the rise

Liquefied natural gas prices are surging to a three-year high as demand from Japan, China and India outpaces supply increases, boosting sales for producers from BG Group Plc to Exxon Mobil Corp….

North America may export about 5 billion cubic feet a day of LNG, or roughly the combined LNG export capacity of Nigeria and Algeria, globally by 2017 from projects that turn surplus gas from shale-rock formations to LNG for shipment to customers in Asia and Europe, according to the Eurasia Group, a New York- based consultant. That’s about half of the six proposed developments by companies including Cheniere in the U.S. Gulf Coast and British Columbia.

How Kitimat harbour will look if both Northern Gateway and KM LNG go ahead

Detail of a map filed by Enbridge Northern Gateway with the Joint Review Panel showing the foot print of the proposed bitumen terminal and the LNG terminal. The proposed BC LNG terminal would add a third terminal at North Cove (green text on this map)

A recent filing by the Enbridge Northern Gateway project with the Joint Review Panel shows just what Kitimat harbour and the service area will look like if the liquified natural gas projects go ahead and so does the Northern Gateway.

Three maps show areas where the two pipelines follow the same routes and where they diverge beginning just east of the service centre. (Larger versions of maps pop up if you click your mouse)

In this map, the Enbridge pipeline is yellow with a black outline, the LNG pipeline is red. Where there are yellow and red alternating squares, that means the two pipelines will follow the same route. Solid orange lines are paved roads,broken orange lines are unpaved roads and the green lines are power lines.

Just before the pipelines reach the service centre, they diverge, the yellow Enbridge pipeline following the road route around the periphery of the service centre, while the gas pipeline at first follows the route of the Pacific Trails Pipeline and then snakes off at the hydro substation. The two pipelines then run parallel just off Haisla Boulevard across from the Rio Tinto Alcan plant. The green line beside the two pipelines marks a hydro line that would be build to power the facilities.

The final map shows the Enbridge pipeline coming into the bitumen/condensate terminal with its large footprint, while the natural gas pipeline continues, crosses Bish Creek and then enters the Bish Cove KM LNG terminal. If the BC LNG terminal is built at North Cove, just west of the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway facility, a branch pipeline would go from the main gas pipeline down to that facility. (There were indications at the June NEB hearings that negotiations were under way on “sharing” gas “molecules” between the two groups).

Footprint of the Enbridge Northern Gateway plant.

Enbridge photo maps showing Northern Gateway and LNG routes in pdf format

Christy Clark flies to Kitimat, spins on LNG, flies out again

Energy Environment Politics
BC Premier Christy Clark meets with the leaders of the Haisla First Nation at Kitamaat Village, Monday, Sept. 19, 2011. (BC government hand out )

BC Premier Christy Clark made a flying visit to Kitimat Monday, Sept. 19, 2011, dropping into Kitamaat Village to meet with the leaders of the Haisla First Nation and, as part of the flying, boarded a helicopter to take a look at the KM LNG at under construction at Bish Cove, before flying out again.

It was all part of the premier’s campaign style job strategy which sees Clark touring the province this week and unveiling a complete jobs package on Thursday.

The proposed liquified natural gas terminals at Kitimat are not as controversial in this region as the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline. There is general support for the LNG projects, allowing for safety concerns about LNG tankers and environmental problems from the construction of the pipeline.

Clark’s visit to the Kitimat region is controversial here because from all appearances, there was little or no substance. If the visit had in been the early decades of the last century, when politicians traveled by train rather than helicopter, it would have been a “whistle stop,” nothing more.

A BC premier visiting the traditional territory of the Haisla First Nation should, of course, make a courtesy call on the leadership in the village, although it appears the visit was short, routine rather than a truly substantial meeting.

As for the rest of the Kitimat region was concerned, the premier’s short in and out photo op was not aimed at helping the people of Kitimat but appeared to be more spinning her jobs strategy throughout the rest of the province which is less familiar with the history of development in Kitimat.

No one in the local media, the Northern Sentinel, Kitimat Daily nor Northwest Coast Energy News were given any information about timing of the premier’s visit, perhaps because local reporters might ask tougher questions than the BC legislature pool traveling with Clark. The Northern Sentinel only found out about the time of the meeting after one of the numerous calls made by local media was actually returned in time for their reporter to be in the village for the premier’s visit.

As of Sunday, no meeting between the premier and Kitimat Mayor Joanne Monaghan was scheduled. At the last minute, after some political arm twisting, the premier did have a brief ten to fifteen minute meeting with Monaghan and Municipal Manager Ron Poole at the village on Monday. (It should be noted that members of Kitimat council will meet with Clark at the up coming convention of the Union of BC Municipalities).

At 14:55 Monday, Sept. 19, Clark (or her PR team) tweeted.

We’re taking steps to get #kitimat’s liquefied natural gas plant running by 2015. A strong LNG industry means local jobs. #bcpoli

The message was quickly retweeted by Clark supporters. That tweet raised eyebrows, since the process for the KM LNG is already well under way, with construction apparently on schedule for the 2015 date when the first natural gas will flow into a tanker. The licence for KM LNG is in the hands of the federal National Energy Board.

What the tweet meant became clearer once the premier’s office issued a news release

Christy Clark’s “more aggressive approach to the development of the natural gas sector” includes traditional small c conservative elements:

Cutting red tape: accelerate the lengthy permitting processes and improve the decision making required to bring large-scale production facilities from a concept to a reality, and that these commitments will be a greater priority for B.C. on a go forward basis.

Skills training: working with industry partners for some time on the future skills required to support a new LNG industry. The goal is to ensure the post-secondary system is able to deliver the targeted training necessary to grow the oil and gas industry, including LNG.

Attracting investment: by working with industry stakeholders and First Nations to remove the barriers and secure the investment required to establish up to three LNG plants by 2020. As of today, the Province is aware of a handful of LNG proposals.

The only practical element in Clark’s announcement was help for the Haisla First Nation in dealing with multiple developments: (as related in the news release)

The Province’s assistance is timely,” said Haisla Nation Chief Councillor Ellis Ross. “Our own training capacity is limited by resources and capabilities, and these have been exhausted given the projects now underway on our territory and the demands they place on our people for skills and training. Our economic future has never looked better, and this assistance will help us deliver on this promise to our community.”

Michael Smyth of The Province (along with a number of Tweeters) noted that most of Clark’s announcement was recycled.

Those same economic storms have buffeted the government, too, and Clark doesn’t have a lot of money to spend on direct job creation — not if she keeps her promise to balance the budget in 2013.

So, expect many re-announcements of old projects. The proposed Kitimat liquefied natural gas plant Clark trumpeted Monday, for example, was approved three years ago.
She’s also expected to cheerlead the Northwest Transmission Line project this week, another one that’s been in development for years.

Without a lot of money to throw around, Clark will talk about getting government out of the way of private-sector job creation. Deregulation and cutting red tape is less expensive than direct stimulus spending to create jobs.

The environmentalists won’t be happy when she starts fast-tracking permits for mining and other resource extraction, but losing “green” votes is the least of her worries.

Veteran journalist Norm Farrell in his blog “Let’s play political football with Kitimat” gives a list of how often a Kitimat LNG project has been announced going back to an Associated Press report from 1981

The Rim Gas Project, which includes Petro-Canada of Calgary, Westcoast Transmission of Vancouver and Mitsui and Co. Ltd. of Japan, wants to deliver and sell liquefied natural gas to Japan from a plant it will build at Bish Cove, six miles from Kitimat.

And Kitimat Tweeter YWGSourpuss posted:

Kitimat has kinda sorta might been getting an LNG Plant since I was a teenager. Meanwhile, Methanex and Eurocan were culled, dust blows…

and then

I see media wonks waffling about LNG/Kitimat/need for cheap energy. Remember Kemano Completion? Ask Rio Tinto re: hole in the mountain.

On the Opposition side of the question, Vancouver Sun columnist Vaughn Palmer looked at an apparent split in the opposition NDP over the LNG issue Wednesday, noting that the environment critic NDP environment critic Rob Fleming is concerned about the controversial fracking process used to retrieve natural gas from shale:

When you look at where the gas would come from, we’re talking about major shale-gas deposits. There are big concerns there, from an environmental perspective, around water usage and whether it’s sustainable, and water contamination when it’s injected underground to bring the gas to the surface – the fracking process – and a lot of greenhouse gases produced.

Palmer reports that the NDP house leader John Horgan has indicated that he and Opposition leader Adrian Dix support LNG exports.

In Horgan’s estimation, it could be piped to the coast, liquefied and shipped out with minimal risk. “Liquid natural gas doesn’t stick to things. It blows up, or it vents. So the environmental consequence of a catastrophe with an LNG tanker is relatively insignificant,” he told me during an interview on Voice of B.C. on Shaw TV.

“So the risk to our coastline from LNG is insignificant; the benefit to British Columbians is quite significant. And it’s our resource, so we’ll get the royalties for extracting it, we’ll get value added by getting it to an LNG facility, and then we’ll get a better price for it in Asia.

Palmer is concerned about Fleming’s caution not to rush things, stating that

For “you can’t rush these things” is precisely the opposite of what industry analysts are saying about LNG development. The window on the Asian market is closing, and if B.C. doesn’t get moving, the opportunity will be gone. Again.

One wonders where Palmer gets his evidence that window of opportunity for the Asian markets is closing? With the Fukishima meltdown, the market window for LNG is actually expanding, not just in Japan but across East Asia. What some in the energy industry are warning about is Canadian gas being exported through the United States, warnings that were prominent at the NEB hearings in Kitimat last June and is largely industry spin trying to hurry the approval process along.

The controversy over fracking will continue, with the energy industry claiming it is safe and the environmental activists saying it is not. What is apparent about fracking as Pro Pubilica have pointed out in their continuing investigation of the issue, is that use of the process on a wide scale is new and there aren’t enough adequate studies of the process. Inadequate study could mean consequences down the road, we don’t know, so there should be some caution.

The blasting continues at the KM LNG site at Bish Cove as the shoreline rocks are levelled to close to sea level. Meanwhile the political spin pitches just as much hot air and debris into the atmosphere.

Northern View: B.C. Jobs Plan’ keys on trade with Asia

Want a job? Come to Kitimat, Christy Clark aide tells Vancouver Island

Economy Link

Robert Matas of the Globe and Mail reports in Crosscheck: Looking for a job in B.C.? that Chilliwack MLA, John Les, parliamentary secretary to BC Premier Christy Clark told an audience in Nanaimo:

Everybody is looking for work around home, but [they] may not be aware that there are jobs available in Kitimat or in Terrace or Fort St. John. That’s not for everybody, but if you’re a young person looking for a job, maybe horizons need to be expanded a bit…

Matas adds in his article:

…up North, the cities are on the cusp of an economic boom, sparked by projects worth $11-billion. The developments are expected to create thousands of new jobs within the next five years.

The list of projects includes a new export terminal near Kitimat for natural gas; modernization of the Rio Tinto Alcan Kitimat smelter; construction of a new 344-kilometre Hydro transmission line that will open up prospects for several more mining properties; a 195-megawatt run-of-river hydroelectric project on Tahltan First Nation lands; and development of a copper and gold property.

The jobs could transform Terrace, a forest-dependent city that has been in a slump since its mills closed down. The mining town of Kitimat has been more stable than Terrace but will also feel the glow from the multibillion-dollar investments in the region…

Editor’s note: One has to wonder why the business media keeps referring to Kitimat as a mining town, since the only mine in the area, the Golden Crown copper and gold venture was abandoned in 1909, more than 100 years ago and Rio Tinto Alcan’s raw material comes from far, far away. (Unless, of course, Matas is referring to some previously unknown revival of the Golden Crown venture is his unnamed copper and gold property)

Harper kills bitumen export ban, support for ocean monitoring group: reports

Energy Links

According to media reports, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has killed support for the Pacific North Coast Integrated Area Management Initiative (PNCIMA) set up to monitor the ocean on the northern BC coast, while at the same time killing a plan to ban export of bitumen to countries with poor environmental records.

The Calgary Herald, in Harper backs off from initiative that threatens opposition to Northern Gateway pipeline

Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government has withdrawn support from a deal with the B.C. government and First Nations due to concerns about excessive influence by U.S.-funded environmental groups in the development of an oceans management plan for the B.C. north coast….

There were specific concerns that a new plan being developed under the Pacific North Coast Integrated Area Management Initiative (PNCIMA) could be used to rally opposition to Calgary-based Enbridge Inc.’s proposed $5.5-billion Northern Gateway pipeline that would funnel diluted bitumen crude from Alberta’s oilsands sector to Asian markets docking at Kitimat, B.C.

A letter dated Sept. 1, and sent to the B.C. government, three First Nations groups and the environmental organization Tides Canada, said Ottawa is withdrawing support for a proposed agreement that would have resulted in $8.3 million, from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation of Palo Alto, California, to fund the PNCIMA process.

The letter, from Fisheries and Oceans Canada regional director general Susan Farlinger, said the government still intends to come up with an oceans management plan by 2012 in co-operation with B.C. and First Nations.

The Vancouver Sun reports Conservatives’ promise to restrict bitumen exports falls by wayside

The Harper government has quietly buried a controversial promise to ban bitumen exports to countries that are environmental laggards…

One person familiar with Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s surprise announcement during the 2008 federal election campaign said the pledge was simply electioneering at the time and was to be “buried and never seen again.”

Alberta’s energy minister also wonders whether the campaign promise is even a government policy any longer, noting the issue has never been discussed with him during his two years in the portfolio.

However, a spokeswoman for federal Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver said Wednesday the government policy — designed to halt the flow of raw bitumen and jobs overseas — remains in place but is being regularly examined.

Link Pacific North Coast Integrated Area Management Initiative

Editor’s note:A double standard?

On the issue of the PNCIMA, the controversy is over money for the organization from the foundation set up by the founder of Intel, Gordon Moore.

Moore is famous not only for starting the successful chip company but for Moore’s Law, which has governed the accelerating pace of technological change in the past decades and is described by Wikipedia in Moore’s original formulation: “The number of transistors that can be placed inexpensively on an integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years. This trend has continued for more than half a century…” That simply means that computer processing power can be expected to double every two years.

The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, according to the Herald, called for the money to be channeled through a group called Tides Canada.

Support for Canadian environmental efforts by American foundations has long been the subject of a heated campaign by blogger Vivian Krause who told the Herald, “I’m pleased that taxpayers’ money will no longer further a foreign-funded campaign that is against Canadian interests,” Krause said, adding that foundation money should go to the developing world.

Krause says she is an independent commentator. She once worked as Corporate Development Manager for North America for NUTRECO, one of the world’s largest producers of farmed salmon and fish feed but disassociates herself from current public relations campaigns by the fish farming industry. Her online biography says she spent some part of her childhood in Kitimat.

Krause is a favourite of many of the right wing columnists across the PostMedia newspaper chain.

While Krause may have some valid points, one wonders why for Krause and her supporters on the business pages across Canada, that it is perfectly acceptable for the billionaires in the transnational energy industry, many of them American, (as well as the state owned Chinese energy companies) to spend corporate millions supporting the oil sands and the pipelines, while is not acceptable for another American capitalist billionaire to spend his money earned in the free market to support his views on the preservation of the environment.