Canadian Energy Centre
Indigenous trade mission to China highlights opportunity for B.C. LNG

Karen Ogen is CEO of the First Nations LNG Alliance. Photo supplied to Canadian Energy Centre
From the Canadian Energy Centre
By Will Gibson
First Nations LNG Alliance CEO Karen Ogen takes message of coastal nations to Beijing
Participating in a recent trade mission to China has strengthened Karen Ogen’s view of the opportunity for B.C. liquefied natural gas (LNG).
For the CEO of the First Nations LNG Alliance, one of 10 Indigenous business leaders in the Canada China Business Council’s trade mission to Beijing in late October, the opportunity was as obvious as the grey smog that blankets the air above China’s capital city on most days.
“So much of the problem with smog and air quality stems from using coal-fired plants to generate electricity,” says Ogen, a former elected chief and councillor of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation.
Researchers have found that switching Chinese coal plants to natural gas from Canada could reduce emissions by up to 62 per cent.
“The Chinese don’t view LNG as a fossil fuel. They see it as an important part of moving towards carbon neutrality,” Ogen says.
“There are huge opportunities for LNG in China and other Asian markets, especially for the coastal nations in British Columbia. The need is there, and the appetite is there. It’s up to us to take advantage of it.”
Ogen previously took trips to China between 2015 to 2018. The most recent trade mission was organized by the Canada China Business Council specifically for Indigenous businesses, organizations and leaders to build connections and partnerships to develop export markets and sources of investment to facilitate exports.
Ogen said the delegation gained valuable insights into new forces shaping China in the post-pandemic era, notably around using social media platforms such as TikTok as part of their marketing and e-commerce outreach to the Chinese market. But she remains struck by the appetite for LNG as a lever to lower emissions as energy demand rises.
“China produces 30 per cent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions — it’s the world’s largest emitter and they are committed to addressing that,” Ogen says.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration projects natural gas demand in the Asia Pacific region will increase by 55 per cent in the next three decades, reaching 54 trillion cubic feet in 2050.
Canada can make a meaningful difference in helping reduce emissions by supplying Asian markets with LNG, she says.
“Converting coal-fired plants in China to LNG produced in Canada would make a bigger impact on greenhouse gas emissions than anything we do in Canada,” Ogen says.
“Canada needs to think globally when it comes to climate change.”
The United States already has seen this opportunity and is addressing it by aggressively expanding LNG exports. Already one of the world’s largest LNG exporters, there are five new LNG projects being built in the U.S.
Canada’s first LNG project is under construction with first exports targeted by 2025. Two Indigenous communities on the B.C. coast are advancing their own proposed terminals, Cedar LNG and Ksi Lisims LNG.
Ogen doesn’t want to see Canada or B.C.’s coastal First Nations shut out of the opportunities she saw on the trade mission.
“The message we received from China’s officials was very clear. They are prepared to do business with Canada and Canada’s Indigenous business community. There are opportunities for investment,” she says.
“But we need governments to work with us to realize those opportunities. If we pursue them seriously, there are real economic benefits for Canada and First Nations.”
And the five-day trade mission has convinced Ogen about the need to address the barriers for Canadian LNG.
“We have a real opportunity to help address climate change while benefiting First Nations,” she says. “It makes too much sense for us not to fight for this.”
Alberta
‘Existing oil sands projects deliver some of the lowest-breakeven oil in North America’

From the Canadian Energy Centre
By Will Gibson
Alberta oil sands projects poised to grow on lower costs, strong reserves
As geopolitical uncertainty ripples through global energy markets, a new report says Alberta’s oil sands sector is positioned to grow thanks to its lower costs.
Enverus Intelligence Research’s annual Oil Sands Play Fundamentals forecasts producers will boost output by 400,000 barrels per day (bbls/d) by the end of this decade through expansions of current operations.
“Existing oil sands projects deliver some of the lowest-breakeven oil in North America at WTI prices lower than $50 U.S. dollars,” said Trevor Rix, a director with the Calgary-based research firm, a subsidiary of Enverus which is headquartered in Texas with operations in Europe and Asia.
Alberta’s oil sands currently produce about 3.4 million bbls/d. Individual companies have disclosed combined proven reserves of about 30 billion barrels, or more than 20 years of current production.
A recent sector-wide reserves analysis by McDaniel & Associates found the oil sands holds about 167 billion barrels of reserves, compared to about 20 billion barrels in Texas.
While trade tensions and sustained oil price declines may marginally slow oil sands growth in the short term, most projects have already had significant capital invested and can withstand some volatility.
“While it takes a large amount of out-of-pocket capital to start an oil sands operation, they are very cost effective after that initial investment,” said veteran S&P Global analyst Kevin Birn.
“Optimization,” where companies tweak existing operations for more efficient output, has dominated oil sands growth for the past eight years, he said. These efforts have also resulted in lower cost structures.
“That’s largely shielded the oil sands from some of the inflationary costs we’ve seen in other upstream production,” Birn said.
Added pipeline capacity through expansion of the Trans Mountain system and Enbridge’s Mainline have added an incentive to expand production, Rix said.
The increased production will also spur growth in regions of western Canada, including the Montney and Duvernay, which Enverus analysts previously highlighted as increasingly crucial to meet rising worldwide energy demand.
“Increased oil sands production will see demand increase for condensate, which is used as diluent to ship bitumen by pipeline, which has positive implications for growth in drilling in liquids-rich regions such as the Montney and Duvernay,” Rix said.
2025 Federal Election
Canada’s pipeline builders ready to get to work

From the Canadian Energy Centre
“We’re focusing on the opportunity that Canada has, perhaps even the obligation”
It was not a call he wanted to make.
In October 2017, Kevin O’Donnell, then chief financial officer of Nisku, Alta.-based Banister Pipelines, got final word that the $16-billion Energy East pipeline was cancelled.
It was his job to pass the news down the line to reach workers who were already in the field.
“We had a crew that was working along the current TC Energy line that was ready for conversion up in Thunder Bay,” said O’Donnell, who is now executive director of the Mississauga, Ont.-based Pipe Line Contractors Association of Canada (PLCAC).
“I took the call, and they said abandon right now. Button up and abandon right now.
“It was truly surreal. It’s tough to tell your foreman, who then tells their lead hands and then you inform the unions that those three or four or five million man-hours that you expected are not going to come to fruition,” he said.

Workers guide a piece of pipe along the Trans Mountain expansion route. Photograph courtesy Trans Mountain Corporation
“They’ve got to find lesser-paying jobs where they’re not honing their craft in the pipeline sector. You’re not making the money; you’re not getting the health and dental coverage that you were getting before.”
O’Donnell estimates that PLCAC represents about 500,000 workers across Canada through the unions it works with.
With the recent completion of the Trans Mountain expansion and Coastal GasLink pipelines – and no big projects like them coming on the books – many are once again out of a job, he said.
It’s frustrating given that this could be what he called a “golden age” for building major energy infrastructure in Canada.
Together, more than 62,000 people were hired to build the Trans Mountain expansion and Coastal GasLink projects, according to company reports.
O’Donnell is particularly interested in a project like Energy East, which would link oil produced in Alberta to consumers in Eastern and Atlantic Canada, then international markets in the offshore beyond.
“I think Energy East or something similar has to happen for millions of reasons,” he said.
“The world’s demanding it. We’ve got the craft [workers], we’ve got the iron ore and we’ve got the steel. We’re talking about a nation where the workers in every province could benefit. They’re ready to build it.”

The “Golden Weld” marked mechanical completion of construction of the Trans Mountain Expansion Project on April 11, 2024. Photo courtesy Trans Mountain Corporation
That eagerness is shared by the Progressive Contractors Association of Canada (PCA), which represents about 170 construction and maintenance employers across the country.
The PCA’s newly launched “Let’s Get Building” advocacy campaign urges all parties in the Canadian federal election run to focus on getting major projects built.
“We’re focusing on the opportunity that Canada has, perhaps even the obligation,” said PCA chief executive Paul de Jong.
“Most of the companies are quite busy irrespective of the pipeline issue right now. But looking at the long term, there’s predictability and long-term strategy that they see missing.”
Top of mind is Ottawa’s Impact Assessment Act (IAA), he said, the federal law that assesses major national projects like pipelines and highways.
In 2023, the Supreme Court of Canada found that the IAA broke the rules of the Canadian constitution.
The court found unconstitutional components including federal overreach into the decision of whether a project requires an impact assessment and whether a project gets final approval to proceed.
Ottawa amended the act in the spring of 2024, but Alberta’s government found the changes didn’t fix the issues and in November launched a new legal challenge against it.
“We’d like to see the next federal administration substantially revisit the Impact Assessment Act,” de Jong said.
“The sooner these nation-building projects get underway, the sooner Canadians reap the rewards through new trading partnerships, good jobs and a more stable economy.”
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