Canada and Germany to host meeting on development of gas industry and liquefied natural gas projects, learned The duty. The Goldboro LNG export project, which would require the construction of a gas pipeline in Quebec, will be presented. A German company that has entered into a partnership with GNL Québec will also participate in the event.
The duty obtained a preliminary list of participants in this ” workshop dedicated to natural gas and liquefied natural gas (LNG), as well as a detailed program of this event scheduled for January 26. No representative of the Canadian Ministry of the Environment is included in this information.
On reading the documents, we see rather that Natural Resources Canada must represent the Canadian government. A director from the ministry’s petroleum development sector will speak, as well as an analyst specializing in natural gas and an assistant director from the liquefied natural gas sector.
The latter will participate in the “government to government” session, along with two other senior officials from Natural Resources Canada, including a “senior director” of the pipelines, gas and liquefied natural gas division. Representatives from Alberta and Newfoundland and Labrador will also be there. Within the framework of this portion of the meeting, it will be question of the means to “support the commercial and investment objectives”, but also of the “positioning of Canada’s LNG for Europe”.
This Canadian-German meeting is also part of the “energy partnership” signed in 2021 between the two countries. When announcing this agreement, the Trudeau government affirmed that LNG projects are part of the development of “clean energy” in the context of the fight against the climate crisis.
The European Union has just proposed to classify natural gas as an energy necessary to “decarbonise” the economy. This could open the door to increased LNG exports from Canada to Europe. The gas companies active on Canadian soil intend to increase their production over the next few years, thanks to exploitation by hydraulic fracturing.
“The workshop will give speakers from both countries the opportunity to discuss natural gas in the context of the global energy transition. Its objective is to promote a better understanding of the impact of energy policies and commitments in each country, of measures to decarbonize natural gas value chains and of the possibilities of increasing energy collaborations between the two countries”, specifies Natural Resources. Canada, by email.
For Greenpeace spokesman Patrick Bonin, this kind of summit is “unacceptable” in the context of the climate crisis. “These countries should mobilize all their efforts to free themselves from hydrocarbons. Once again, the Trudeau government’s approach is riddled with inconsistencies that undermine its credibility and threaten compliance with its climate commitments.
Gas pipeline in Quebec?
In addition to representatives of the governments of Canada and Germany, several companies will be present. The Canadian Natural Gas Association and the Explorers and Producers Association of Canada will present under the theme “Natural Gas in the Energy Transition”.
Two companies from the oil and gas sector will speak during a segment focusing in particular on “the environmental impacts of the production and transport of LNG” and on the extraction of “unconventional” gas, therefore exploited by fracturing.
Specific LNG export projects to Europe will also be presented, including Goldboro LNG, from Pieridae Energy. This Alberta natural gas liquefaction plant, which would be built in Nova Scotia, would require the construction of a new gas pipeline that would cross the territory of several municipalities in Quebec.
In all likelihood, the natural gas would flow in a pipe located on the same route as the Trans Quebec and Maritimes gas pipeline network, which is owned by TC Energy. It would therefore pass through a gas pipeline that would cross the east of the island of Montreal, then part of Montérégie and Estrie, before crossing the American border. It passes in particular in the sectors of Sainte-Julie, Granby, Bromont, Magog and Coaticook. Prime Minister François Legault has already said he is open to this project.
LNG Quebec
In addition, the name of the managing director of Hanseatic Energy Hub, Manfred Schubert, appears in the preliminary list of participants in the ” workshop “. Last year, he was quoted in the press release announcing a “strategic partnership” between LNG Quebec and Hanseatic Energy Hub, which wishes to build an LNG import terminal in Germany. GNL Québec has also repeatedly expressed its desire to sell liquefied natural gas there.
If the Legault government has rejected the LNG Quebec project, the Trudeau government has not yet decided on its fate. The federal environmental assessment process has still not been completed. According to the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada (AEIC), the “final report” will be tabled on a date to be determined.
As part of his federal lobbying mandate, the president of GNL Québec, Tony Le Verger, spoke with the interim president of the CNSA, Terence Hubbard, on November 18th. This discussion “focused on the status and next steps of the environmental assessment”, but also on “the potential conditions relating to the environmental assessment”, specifies the AEIC in the Duty.
The LNG Quebec project is being studied under a law passed under the Harper government. This provides that the Minister of the Environment, Steven Guilbeault, cannot take into account the greenhouse gas emissions of gas exploitation or the impacts of maritime transport to determine whether the plant would have environmental effects ” negative” and to impose conditions on the proponent.