‘Incredible quantities’ of natural gas awaits new project in Canada

‘Incredible quantities’ of natural gas awaits new project in Canada


What Gastech has described in an online statement as “incredible quantities of gas, originally defined to supply the Mackenzie Gas Project” lie in wait of a new project and more favourable economic conditions.  The Canada Energy Regulator estimates the amount of available natural gas to be more than 10 trillion cubic feet.

It said this is because the Mackenzie Gas Project (a historic pipeline project that would have flowed natural gas from the Northwest Territories’ Mackenzie Delta into the national pipeline network in Alberta) has been halted because the shale boom has blown the bottom out of the North American market.

But as Menzie McEachern, Director, Mineral and Petroleum Resources, Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment, Government of Northwest Territories put it: “it’s unfulfilled potential without the competitive access to markets that will pay the right price. Today, that market is the Asia-Pacific where Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) is being sold at five to seven times North American prices and the most direct route to these lucrative high gas-demand markets is ‘over the top’ from the Beaufort Sea west through the Bering Strait.”

In fact, he added on the Gastech website, gas can reach the Asia-Pacific marketplace two or three days quicker from Tuktoyaktuk on Canada’s Arctic coast than from many of the established ports on the west coast of North America or Russia. It’s about 3,800 nautical miles from Tuktoyaktuk to Tokyo compared with 4,300 from Vancouver to Tokyo, and well over 5,100 nautical miles from the Yamal Peninsula to Tokyo.

Meanwhile, McEachern said the technology which will define the future for LNG in Canada’s Arctic is icebreaking LNG tankers. With reinforced hulls and more nimble controls to navigate the complexities of the Arctic, these tankers have been running at full capacity from Yamal to Tokyo since late-2018.

As important to the new narrative are floating LNG facilities – capable of processing gas into liquid and then loading the product on ships; again technology that is already in use by giants like Petronas and Royal Dutch Shell in Malaysia, Australia and Russia.

So with an abundance of resources, growing demand and new technologies, McEachern concluded: “interest and awareness is once again turning to the North’s natural gas resources. Even long-held regulatory, safety and environmental concerns are, in today’s story, steadily surmountable. 

And residents of Canada’s resource-richest territory are hopeful that a new direction may finally be what it takes to open the next chapter in the development of Canada’s Arctic gas resources.”

For more information visit gastechinsights.com

6th April 2020