The leader from the Petronas-led North american LNG project said he expects a virtually three-year environmental review process to come to an end March 22 and a “timely” cabinet decision right after.
But within an interview from Kl, where Petronas is based, Michael Culbert, the project’s president, denied proponents have given Ottawa a March 31 ultimatum for a decision on where it may be built.
“We are continuing to move that forward and we believe we are in the final stages to some ultimate decision,” said Culbert, who’s stepping down April 1 from the LNG leadership role to concentrate on the upstream end from the project.
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The shareholders from the $36 billion proposed project will decide whether to go ahead after reviewing its economics and the conditions of its permit. The project is owned by Petronas, China’s Sinopec, Japan Petroleum Exploration Co., India Oil Corp. and Petroleum Brunei.
A source near to the project said the consortium is getting frustrated with continuing delays and won’t accept new hurdles to meet Pm Justin Trudeau’s climate change priorities.
Culbert also denied the project is reducing staff, even though a terminated employee said Tuesday some are now being advised they will be out of a job.
Meanwhile, more than 130 Canadian and international scientists are urging the us government to reject an environmental review of the project, claiming it is “scientifically flawed.”
The open letter towards the federal environment and global warming minister, Catherine McKenna, published Wednesday, may come as consultation winds down this week on the draft report by the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency (CEAA), leading to duelling campaigns by supporters and opponents.
The project, to become located on federal arrives at Lelu Island near Prince Rupert, received a largely favourable assessment in the agency recently, was greenlighted through the British Columbia government in November 2014 and received conditional corporate support from Malaysia’s state-owned company and its partners in June of this past year.
In the draft report, finalized recently, CEAA concluded the work would likely cause significant adverse effects on “harbor porpoise … as a result of greenhouse gas emissions” but “with respect to all other valued components, the company concludes that the project is not likely to result in significant adverse environmental effects considering the implementation of key mitigation measures.”
Jonathan Moore, Liber Ero chair of coastal science and management at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, B.C., said he isn’t in opposition to LNG, but the report ignores science and is based on data submit by the proponent.
“What we know scientifically is this fact is a bad spot for LNG in terms of risks to fish and those that rely on fish,” Moore, one of the scientists with the report’s rejection, said in an interview.
The report misrepresents the importance of the work area to fish populations, especially salmon, the scientists say.
“Five decades of science has repeatedly documented this habitat is not representative of other locations along the north coast or perhaps in the greater Skeena River estuary, but instead that it’s exceptional nursery habitat for salmon that supports commercial, recreational, and First Nation Fisheries,” the scientists, from B.C. to California to Russia, write.
The LNG project is conducting its own campaign. Within an emailed statement obtained by the Financial Post, Culbert urges supporters to get friends and family to send letters towards the CEAA by March 11, when the public comment period ends.
