Fraser Institute study explores cost of delays for LNG in British Columbia

A study released yesterday by the Fraser Institute is drawing attention to the financial cost to the province's financial returns from LNG should current projects under consideration continue to face delays as they consider their investment options.

The report compiled by Benjamin Archer and Kenneth P. Green calls for policy makers to streamline the regulatory process to allow for the province of British Columbia to make use of the natural gas resources found in the province.

Making use of data from both the National Energy Board and findings from the International Energy Agency, the authors note that at this moment, of the many LNG projects proposed for the province, even with an accelerated schedule at this point, the first, if any of the projects to come on line won't do so until the year 2020.

The report also notes that around the world a number of other LNG projects are much further along in development and ready to come on stream before British Columbia's industry finds its feet.

That delay for British Columbia they suggest is set to cost the province billions of dollars in lost revenue streams,

A Fraser Institute study calls
attention to the level of
delays for LNG approval and
the cost to BC in revenues from LNG 

The prospect of a reliable return on revenues has been one of the key focus points from the provincial government when it comes to their BC LNG strategy.

The research bulletin from the Vancouver based organization lists six main conclusions, with two key take aways from those final thoughts.

Strong environmental and other protections are necessary, but regulatory and other delays are hindering the ability of BC to compete for those sales.

Under conservative assumptions—that actual sales of BC LNG to Asia-Pacific importers would be only 11–20 percent of that market in 2020—the annual export revenues lost due to delay would have equated to between 2 and 9.5 percent of BC GDP in 2014, depending on assumptions about export volumes and prices.

The Fraser Institute which is well known for its pro business outlook and frequent criticism of over involvement of government on many fronts, so not surprisingly the major thrust of their 12 page review is that policy makers need to be encouraged to streamline the process for approval of such projects in the province.

By reducing those issues that LNG proponents face, the authors suggest that British Columbia will better be able to make use of its large natural gas resources and exploit the comparative advantages that the province has in the LNG export market.

You can review the full report here.

A look at the progress of the various LNG projects proposed for the North Coast can be found on our LNG Archive page.