Irving Oil gets green light for terminal
Government approvals come with conditions
canadaeast.com
BY SANDRA DAVIS
AND ROB LINKE
Telegraph-Journal
It's a go for this megaproject.
Irving Oil's proposed Liquefied Natural Gas terminal at Mispec on Saint John's sparsely populated eastern shore, now estimated to cost $750 million, has become the first in northeastern North America to receive regulatory approval.
The approvals, from both the federal and provincial departments of Environment and the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans, come with conditions.
But the government departments were not prepared Friday afternoon to divulge those conditions, which are meant to protect the public and the environment.
Provincial Environment Minister Brenda Fowlie said the stakeholders, including Irving Oil and the City of Saint John, haven't been told the conditions yet. She said that has to happen before they are made public, perhaps early next week.
"We are organizing those meetings and then we will issue all the conditions, along with all of the documentation," she said.
As a construction project, the LNG terminal will take at least three years to build and create 250 jobs at its peak, said Irving Oil spokesman Daniel Goodwin. Twenty full-time employees will operate the terminal.
Economic spinoffs are calculated at $26 million in direct labour income and another $14 million in indirect expenditures, said Mr. Goodwin.
The company's next step is the detailed engineering phase.
Saint John Mayor Norm McFarlane said he was thrilled.
"I am sure it is going to help the economy with jobs and certainly in the construction stage to start it is going to be a great boom here and it will be great to have the LNG plant here," he said Friday.
"Super," said Saint John Construction Association executive director Pat Darrah upon being told.
The $750-million project includes three LNG storage tanks, a re-gassification plant and a marine terminal for the receiving and unloading of LNG from ships at Irving Oil's existing deep-water marine terminal, Irving Canaport, in operation at Mispec since 1970.
The terminal is approved for a maximum through-put capacity of one billion cubic feet of natural gas per day.
Industry analysts have predicted that liquefied natural gas can be delivered to the U.S. east coast at about half the cost of natural gas taken from a well and placed in a pipeline.
New Brunswick's only access to natural gas is from wells off Nova Scotia. An LNG terminal would receive the super-cooled gas brought in by double-hulled tankers, and provide a stable alternative supply for the growing demand for natural gas in eastern Canada and the northeastern U.S. There are fears that demand will outstrip supply from the offshore Sable fields in coming years.
It is one of a few proposed projects for northeastern North America, all of them jockeying to start up and capture key customers. One project is proposed for near Port Hawkesbury, N.S.; another is at Searsport, Maine; another, at Harpswell, Maine, was halted in March when residents voted against it in a plebiscite.
The project was first proposed in 2002 by Irving Oil and Chevron-Texaco, then postponed early in 2003. The company blamed instability in energy markets.
Mr. Goodwin said Friday that while discussions continue with Chevron and other potential suppliers of gas, Chevron is no longer a partner. The entire $750-million investment will be borne by Irving.
More than 70 families live in Mispec, on the far side of Canaport. Some residents have expressed concern that, if something went wrong at the massive gas terminal, they have only one road out, which travels within a few hundred metres of the proposed gas site.
The assessment of environmental impacts included a 700-page report prepared by the company. The report detailing studies carried out for the Environmental Impact Assessment was paid for by Irving Oil. From November 2003 to May, when it was approved, it was studied by a technical review committee with experts from eight provincial government departments, five federal departments, the City of Saint John, Saint John Port Authority, Atlantic Pilotage Authority and Saint John Harbour Pilots Association.
The province also appointed an independent panel, which presided at a public meeting in June attended by 40 people. At the meeting, Gordon Dalzell of the Saint John Clean Air Coalition presented a 90-page report and said, "There are too many unanswered question to give approval to this project," he said. LNG contributes to ground level ozone and greenhouse gas production, he said.
The EIA found the impact on local roads and on lobster fishing grounds would be insignificant.
Speaking in favour of the project at that June meeting were Bill Artiss and Dianna Barton, both of Enterprise Saint John, Darryl Goyetche of the Saint John Board of Trade, and Nick Ediger, a consultant to Enterprise Saint John on energy matters.
"We estimate future investment in this sector of over $3 billion," said Mr. Artiss, who is also deputy mayor of Rothesay.
Saint John Fundy Liberal MLA Stuart Jamieson, his party's environment critic, sounded a cautionary note about project's approval.
"I think it is fortunate we have this type of development for the economic spin-offs it will deliver but, of course, there are environmental issues that definitely needed to be addressed," he said.
He'll be looking to see what conditions were set about off-loading procedures, as well as increased traffic in the Bay of Fundy and the harbour.
"The one missing part of the (impact assessment) document I saw was there was no indication that the harbour pilots have been involved in the consultation."
Mr. Goodwin has said the company was waiting for full environmental approval from the province before reviving negotiations with landowners for a right of way for the pipeline. The company will also have to seek approval from the Public Utilities Board to build a pipeline.
LNG is a natural gas, primarily methane, which has been cooled to its liquid state at minus 162.2 C.
It will be brought in by ship in a liquid form and will be turned back into gas by heating it in pipes running through warm water.
- with files from Mike Mullen and Nina Chiarelli |
