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www.northernsentinel.com
Volume 60 No. 05
Council is firm on plebiscite wording Kitimat council won’t be changing the wording of its April Enbridge Northern Gateway plebiscite, but first debated the issue and heard challenges from citizens. The issue arose at council’s regular January 20 meeting, building off a committee of the whole meeting January 13 to discuss what question council would put to voters regarding Northern Gateway. The proposed question set on January 13 was regarded by some council members and members of the public as being too wordy and complicated: “Do you support the final report recommendations of the Joint Review Panel (JRP) of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency and National Energy Board, that the Enbridge Northern Gateway project be approved, subject to 209 conditions set out in Volume 2 of the JRP’s final report?” Some councillors had wanted a simpler and shorter question, “Are you in favour of the Enbridge Northern Gateway Project, yes or no?” But that was defeated after being opposed by Mayor Joanne Monaghan and councillors Edwin Empinado, Mario Feldhoff and Mary Murphy. Voting in favour were councillors Phil Germuth, Rob Goffinet and Corinne Scott. An attempt to rescind the January 13 motion which set out the longer question was defeated by Monaghan, Empinado, Feldhoff and Murphy while Germuth, Goffinet and Scott were in favour. The majority of citizens who made presentations to council prior to its discussion on the plebiscite question felt the question was too long. One citizen, Glenn Stenson, said the question asked voters to approve of the federal review of Northern Gateway, adding he felt
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Residents will be able to vote ‘yes’, ‘no’ or ‘undecided’. the review process was flawed. He wanted a shorter question, “Do you approve of the Enbridge Northern Gateway Project?” A shorter and more direct question was also favoured by Sylvia DeSousa and David McRae. While council did debate the wording of the plebiscite, it was unanimous in defeating a suggestion to tack on questions. That idea arose at the January 13 meeting, resulting in Kitimat municipal officials crafting possible additional questions regarding resource development Northern Gateway. Those questions included issues such as marine safety and the possibility of an oil pipeline feeding a refinery in the Kitimat area. In the end, however, council members felt including those questions would detract from the central question of the Northern Gateway pipeline. The plebiscite is expected to cost in the neighbourhood of $15,000 and will be held April 12 with advance voting before that. Residents will be able to vote ‘yes’, ‘no’ or ‘undecided’. The plebiscite move follows a January 2012 resolution by council to seek the opinion of Kitimat residents once the federal review of Northern Gateway had finished. That review finished last year and the report was released in late December. It recommended the federal cabinet approve of the project subject to several hundred conditions.
LNG Canada’s future clouded Malcolm Baxter No final investment decision on the proposed LNG Canada project in Kitimat was due until next year. But recent developments suggest that date is going to be pushed back, likely significantly. The project is a partnership made up of Shell Canada, KOGAS of Korea, Mitsubishi of Japan and PetroChina. The liquefaction plant and terminal is to be built on the old Methanex site and produce 12 million tonnes of LNG a year. The problem lies in the financial performance of Shell the major partner at 40 per cent. The company issued an earnings warning on Friday, January 17 that its fourth quarter results would show a profit of $2.2 billion, less than a third of the $7.3 racked up in the same quarter in 2012. The numbers did not impress new CEO Ben van Beurden who said, “the group’s performance was not what I expect from Shell.” Three days later the company announced it was selling its stake in two Australian LNG
projects for just over $1.1 billion, both to the Kuwait Foreign Petroleum Exploration Company. In making the sales, van Beurden explained the company was making “hard choices in our world-wide portfolio to improve Shell’s capital efficiency.” In the same vein, he said that while Shell would remain “a major player” in Australia, it was “refocusing our investment to where we can add the most value.” Although Shell has made no comment on what this might mean for the Kitimat project, industry analysts are connecting the dots and anticipate LNG Canada will be pushed to the back burner for now. The expectation is that Shell will retrench through a combination of the sale of more assets and a hard line on capital expenditures. None of this is good news for BC premier Christy Clark who boldly predicted before the last election that there would be one operational LNG plant in BC by 2015 and three by 2020.
The provincial government got even more ambitious in the budget it brought down last June which assumed at least three LNG plants operational by 2018. The 2015 number is already unachievable and, given the time it takes a project to go through the regulatory process and - once final approvement is given - to actually build the plant, there is no chance there will be three by 2018. However any significant delay on Canada LNG may actually be of benefit to Kitimat’s other LNG project, Kitimat LNG. That’s because if Shell does as the analysts expect and with the completion of the Rio Tinto Kitimat Modernisation project, Kitimat LNG would then become the only construction game in town and therefore would be able to avoid the huge cost overruns experienced in Australia. Shell will officially release its fourth quarter figures tomorrow at which time there may be more clarity on the company’s intentions as far as LNG Canada is concerned.
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Haisla Nation files appeal ... page 5