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Japan PM sees LNG Canada as a ‘flagship’ facility to help improve world energy security while lowering emissions

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Prime Minister of Japan Fumio Kishida speaks during the G7 summit at Schloss Elmau, Germany on June 26, 2022 as (L-R) Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and German Chancellor Olaf Schulz look on. Getty Images photo

From the Canadian Energy Centre Ltd.

Kishida is expected to ask for Canadian LNG as the country looks to replace Russian gas supplies

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida sees the LNG Canada terminal under construction at Kitimat, B.C. as a “flagship” facility, he said in remarks Jan. 12 during a visit to Ottawa to meet with Prime Minster Justin Trudeau. 

“LNG will indeed play a crucial role in striking a balance between energy security and decarbonization,” he said.  

“LNG Canada is a flagship project making maximum use of the latest technologies of Japanese companies.” 

Resource-poor Japan is the world’s largest LNG consumer, using the fuel to generate electricity, power industry, and heat homes and businesses. Qatar is one of Japan’s largest LNG suppliers. 

Kishida is expected to ask for Canadian LNG as the country looks to replace Russian gas supplies. Japan, a relatively short distance from the LNG Canada project compared to terminals on the U.S. Gulf Coast, imported nearly 75 million tonnes of LNG in 2020 – worth over $30 billion. 

Kishida’s visit comes just months after German Chancellor Olaf Scholz visited Ottawa also seeking Canadian LNG. Prime Minister Trudeau questioned the business case for shipping Canadian LNG to Europe.  

Germany, moving swiftly to reduce reliance on natural gas flows from Russia, built an LNG import facility in just 194 days and recently received its first shipment from the U.S. It also signed an agreement with Qatar to receive 2 million tonnes of LNG per year for 15 years starting in 2026. Germany will open a second LNG import terminal in January.  

While Canadian LNG can help alleviate the challenge in Europe, the larger long-term opportunity is in Asia, according to energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie. 

Module delivery, LNG Canada site, Kitimat, B.C., July 2022. Photo courtesy LNG Canada

“For Asian buyers, Canadian LNG is quite cost competitive due to its relatively low shipping and liquefaction costs compared to other global exporters,” says Dulles Wang, Wood Mackenzie’s director of Americas gas and LNG research. 

As of July 2022, Japan had 92 operating coal plants, 6 under construction and 1 in pre-construction, says Global Energy Monitor. Construction of new coal-fired power plants is occurring mostly in Asia, with China accounting for 52 per cent of the 176 gigawatts of coal capacity being built in 20 countries in 2021, says a New Scientist report 

“If Canada increases its LNG export capacity to Asia, net emissions could decline by 188 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent per year through 2050 – or the impact every year of taking 41 million cars off the road,” according to Wood Mackenzie analysis. 

Asia drives 67 per cent of global LNG demand today, and that share is expected to grow to 73 per cent by 2050 as world consumption doubles to 700 million tonnes per year. 

“Starting in 2027, we see there’s going to be a global supply/demand gap that is probably going to grow to 120 million tonnes per annum and about 150 million tonnes per annum by 2035,” says Matthias Bloennigen, Wood Mackenzie’s director of Americas upstream consulting.  

“Developing western Canadian LNG would be helpful to alleviate the LNG demand that’s going to develop in the world.” 

The unaltered reproduction of this content is free of charge with attribution to Canadian Energy Centre Ltd. 

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Alberta

Alberta awash in corporate welfare

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From the Fraser Institute

By Matthew Lau

To understand Ottawa’s negative impact on Alberta’s economy and living standards, juxtapose two recent pieces of data.

First, in July the Trudeau government made three separate “economic development” spending announcements in  Alberta, totalling more than $80 million and affecting 37 different projects related to the “green economy,” clean technology and agriculture. And second, as noted in a new essay by Fraser Institute senior fellow Kenneth Green, inflation-adjusted business investment (excluding residential structures) in Canada’s extraction sector (mining, quarrying, oil and gas) fell 51.2 per cent from 2014 to 2022.

The productivity gains that raise living standards and improve economic conditions rely on business investment. But business investment in Canada has declined over the past decade and total economic growth per person (inflation-adjusted) from Q3-2015 through to Q1-2024 has been less than 1 per cent versus robust growth of nearly 16 per cent in the United States over the same period.

For Canada’s extraction sector, as Green documents, federal policies—new fuel regulations, extended review processes on major infrastructure projects, an effective ban on oil shipments on British Columbia’s northern coast, a hard greenhouse gas emissions cap targeting oil and gas, and other regulatory initiatives—are largely to blame for the massive decline in investment.

Meanwhile, as Ottawa impedes private investment, its latest bundle of economic development announcements underscores its strategy to have government take the lead in allocating economic resources, whether for infrastructure and public institutions or for corporate welfare to private companies.

Consider these federally-subsidized projects.

A gas cloud imaging company received $4.1 million from taxpayers to expand marketing, operations and product development. The Battery Metals Association of Canada received $850,000 to “support growth of the battery metals sector in Western Canada by enhancing collaboration and education stakeholders.” A food manufacturer in Lethbridge received $5.2 million to increase production of plant-based protein products. Ermineskin Cree Nation received nearly $400,000 for a feasibility study for a new solar farm. The Town of Coronation received almost $900,000 to renovate and retrofit two buildings into a business incubator. The Petroleum Technology Alliance Canada received $400,000 for marketing and other support to help boost clean technology product exports. And so on.

When the Trudeau government announced all this corporate welfare and spending, it naturally claimed it create economic growth and good jobs. But corporate welfare doesn’t create growth and good jobs, it only directs resources (including labour) to subsidized sectors and businesses and away from sectors and businesses that must be more heavily taxed to support the subsidies. The effect of government initiatives that reduce private investment and replace it with government spending is a net economic loss.

As 20th-century business and economics journalist Henry Hazlitt put it, the case for government directing investment (instead of the private sector) relies on politicians and bureaucrats—who did not earn the money and to whom the money does not belong—investing that money wisely and with almost perfect foresight. Of course, that’s preposterous.

Alas, this replacement of private-sector investment with public spending is happening not only in Alberta but across Canada today due to the Trudeau government’s fiscal policies. Lower productivity and lower living standards, the data show, are the unhappy results.

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Alberta

‘Fireworks’ As Defence Opens Case In Coutts Two Trial

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From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy 

By Ray McGinnis

Anthony Olienick and Chris Carbert are on trial for conspiracy to commit murder and firearms charges in relation to the Coutts Blockade into mid-February 2022. In opening her case before a Lethbridge, AB, jury on July 11, Olienick’s lawyer, Marilyn Burns stated “This is a political, criminal trial that is un Canadian.” She told the jury, “You will be shocked, and at the very least, disappointed with how Canada’s own RCMP conducted themselves during and after the Coutts protest,” as she summarized officers’ testimony during presentation of the Crown’s case. Burns also contended that “the conduct of Alberta’s provincial government and Canada’s federal government are entwined with the RCMP.” The arrests of the Coutts Four on the night of February 13 and noon hour of February 14, were key events in a decision by the Clerk of the Privy Council, Janice Charette, and the National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister, Jody Thomas, to advise Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to invoke the Emergencies Act. Chief Justice Paul Rouleau, in submitting his Public Order Emergency Commission Report to Parliament on February 17, 2023, also cited events at the Coutts Blockade as key to his conclusion that the government was justified in invoking the Emergencies Act.

Justice David Labrenz cautioned attorney Burns regarding her language, after Crown prosecutor Stephen Johnson objected to some of the language in the opening statement of Olienick’s counsel. Futher discussion about the appropriateness of attorney Burns’ statement to the jury is behind a publication ban, as discussions occurred without the jury present.

Justice Labrenz told the jury on July 12, “I would remind you that the presumption of innocence means that both the accused are cloaked with that presumption, unless the Crown proves beyond a reasonable doubt the essential elements of the charge(s).” He further clarified what should result if the jurors were uncertain about which narrative to believe: the account by the Crown, or the account from the accused lawyers. Labrenz stated that such ambivalence must lead to an acquittal; As such a degree of uncertainty regarding which case to trust in does not meet the “beyond a reasonable doubt” threshold for a conviction.”

On July 15, 2024, a Lethbridge jury heard evidence from a former employer of Olienicks’ named Brian Lambert. He stated that he had tasked Olienick run his sandstone quarry and mining business. He was a business partner with Olienick. In that capacity, Olienick made use of what Lambert referred to as “little firecrackers,” to quarry the sandstone and reduce it in size. Reducing the size of the stone renders it manageable to get refined and repurposed so it could be sold to buyers of stone for other uses (building construction, patio stones, etc.) Lambert explained that the “firecrackers” were “explosive devices” packaged within tubing and pipes that could also be used for plumbing. He detailed how “You make them out of ordinary plumbing pipe and use some kind of propellant like shotgun powder…” Lambert explained that the length of the pipe “…depended on how big a hole or how large a piece of stone you were going to crack. The one I saw was about six inches long … maybe an inch in diameter.”

One of Olienick’s charges is “unlawful possession of an explosive device for a dangerous purpose.” The principal evidence offered up by RCMP to the Crown is what the officers depicted as “pipe bombs” which they obtained at the residence of Anthony Olienick in Claresholm, Alberta, about a two-hour drive from Coutts. Officers entered his home after he was arrested the night of February 13, 2022. Lambert’s testimony offers a plausible common use for the “firecrackers” the RCMP referred to as “pipe bombs.” Lambert added, these “firecrackers” have a firecracker fuse, and in the world of “explosive” they are “no big deal.”

Fellow accused, Chris Carbert, is does not face the additional charge of unlawful possession of explosives for a dangerous purpose. This is the first full week of the case for the defence. The trial began on June 6 when the Crown began presenting its case.

Ray McGinnis is a Senior Fellow with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy who recently attended several days of testimony at the Coutts Two trial.

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