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Canadian Energy Centre

Coastal GasLink completion key to unlocking Canadian natural gas for the world

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Construction underway on the Coastal GasLink pipeline, which will transport natural gas from northeast BC to the LNG Canada terminal in Kitimat. Photograph courtesy of Coastal GasLink

From the Canadian Energy Centre

By Cody Ciona

Once the pipeline is in service, 17 of the twenty First Nations along the pipeline route have signed an agreement for the option to buy a 10 per cent stake

Canada’s natural gas industry has made a major step forward in efforts to export much needed supply to energy-hungry markets in Asia.

The key is the completion of the Coastal GasLink pipeline at the end of 2023.

The project, nearly 12 years in the making, is Canada’s only natural gas export pipeline to the west coast.

It will deliver supply to the port of Kitimat, about 1,400 kilometres northwest of Vancouver. There it will be supercooled and turned into the lowest carbon liquefied natural gas (LNG) in the world and shipped across to global customers from the export facility. That facility is expected to begin operations next year.

It is estimated that the two projects could reduce between 60 to 90 million tonnes of global emissions per year by replacing coal-fired power in Asia

“Coastal GasLink reached mechanical completion in early November 2023 ahead of schedule and is ready to deliver natural gas to LNG Canada’s facility, which will depend on their own commissioning process,” said Natasha Westover, manager of external relations for TC Energy

“Which means, sustainably produced LNG could be shipped to global markets by 2025, via this world-class, safety-leading pipeline.”

The project continues momentum for economic reconciliation with Indigenous communities, with Coastal GasLink set to become one of Canada’s largest infrastructure projects with Indigenous ownership.

Once the pipeline is in service, 17 of the twenty First Nations along the pipeline route have signed an agreement for the option to buy a 10 per cent stake.

“The opportunity was made available to all 20 Indigenous communities holding existing agreements with Coastal GasLink and is an important step on the path to true partnership through equity ownership in the project,” Westover said.

The ownership stakes are in addition to numerous agreements and contracts reached with Indigenous communities along Coastal GasLink’s path. In all, the project spent $1.8 billion with Indigenous and local businesses.

According to TC Energy, the project created more than 25,700 full-time equivalent jobs and took 55 million hours to complete. The project generated $3.2 billion to B.C.’s GDP, some $331 million in tax revenue, and $3.95 billion in spending with B.C. businesses and suppliers.

As well, during construction, Coastal GasLink and TC Energy spent over $13 million in community investments and sponsorships to support local and Indigenous community initiatives.

Once operating, it is estimated that over $26 million in annual tax revenue will be generated for communities along the pipeline’s path. Even with construction coming to an end, local communities will continue to see economic spinoffs. More than $42 million is expected to be generated each year through local economic activity.

“These accomplishments mark the end of the project’s five-year construction phase, during which time our workers, contractors, Indigenous and local communities collaborated to complete Canada’s first pipeline to the west coast in 70 years,” Westover said.

Work will now continue on environmental reclamation and preparing communities and workers for the start of operations.

“Coastal GasLink looks forward to continuing to be a part of the local community as we prepare for safe operations for decades to come,” Westover said.

2025 Federal Election

Canada’s pipeline builders ready to get to work

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From the Canadian Energy Centre

By Deborah Jaremko

“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.

Construction of the Coastal GasLink pipeline. Photograph courtesy Coastal GasLink

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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Canadian Energy Centre

First Nations in Manitoba pushing for LNG exports from Hudson’s Bay

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From the Canadian Energy Centre

By Will Gibson

NeeStaNan project would use port location selected by Canadian government more than 100 years ago

Building a port on Hudson’s Bay to ship natural resources harvested across Western Canada to the world has been a long-held dream of Canadian politicians, starting with Sir Wilfred Laurier.

Since 1931, a small deepwater port has operated at Churchill, Manitoba, primarily shipping grain but more recently expanding handling of critical minerals and fertilizers.

A group of 11 First Nations in Manitoba plans to build an additional industrial terminal nearby at Port Nelson to ship liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Europe and potash to Brazil.

Courtesy NeeStaNan

Robyn Lore, a director with project backer NeeStaNan, which is Cree for “all of us,” said it makes more sense to ship Canadian LNG to Europe from an Arctic port than it does to send Canadian natural gas all the way to the U.S. Gulf Coast to be exported as LNG to the same place – which is happening today.

“There is absolutely a business case for sending our LNG directly to European markets rather than sending our natural gas down to the Gulf Coast and having them liquefy it and ship it over,” Lore said. “It’s in Canada’s interest to do this.”

Over 100 years ago, the Port Nelson location at the south end of Hudson’s Bay on the Nelson River was the first to be considered for a Canadian Arctic port.

In 1912, a Port Nelson project was selected to proceed rather than a port at Churchill, about 280 kilometres north.

The Port Nelson site was earmarked by federal government engineers as the most cost-effective location for a terminal to ship Canadian resources overseas.

Construction started but was marred by building challenges due to violent winter storms that beached supply ships and badly damaged the dredge used to deepen the waters around the port.

By 1918, the project was abandoned.

In the 1920s, Prime Minister William Lyon MacKenzie King chose Churchill as the new location for a port on Hudson’s Bay, where it was built and continues to operate today between late July and early November when it is not iced in.

Lore sees using modern technology at Port Nelson including dredging or extending a floating wharf to overcome the challenges that stopped the project from proceeding more than a century ago.

Port Nelson, Manitoba in 1918. Photo courtesy NeeStaNan

He said natural gas could travel to the terminal through a 1,000-kilometre spur line off TC Energy’s Canadian Mainline by using Manitoba Hydro’s existing right of way.

A second option proposes shipping natural gas through Pembina Pipeline’s Alliance system to Regina, where it could be liquefied and shipped by rail to Port Nelson.

The original rail bed to Port Nelson still exists, and about 150 kilometers of track would have to be laid to reach the proposed site, Lore said.

“Our vision is for a rail line that can handle 150-car trains with loads of 120 tonnes per car running at 80 kilometers per hour. That’s doable on the line from Amery to Port Nelson. It makes the economics work for shippers,” said Lore.

Port Nelson could be used around the year because saltwater ice is easier to break through using modern icebreakers than freshwater ice that impacts Churchill between November and May.

Lore, however, is quick to quell the notion NeeStaNan is competing against the existing port.

“We want our project to proceed on its merits and collaborate with other ports for greater efficiency,” he said.

“It makes sense for Manitoba, and it makes sense for Canada, even more than it did for Laurier more than 100 years ago.”

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