With the Canaport LNG export terminal project in Saint John on hold indefinitely, the provincial Energy and Mines minister thinks we need to focus on increasing the infrastructure capacity for natural gas in New England.
In an email to CHSJ News following our story on Tuesday on Repsol putting the project on hold, Donald Arseneault says Canaport has “more of an opportunity to import right now to help New England” because they don’t have adequate infrastructure for the transportation of natural gas.
“This is the best way to make the case for Canaport to convert their LNG terminal to an export facility as it would nullify the business case for it to remain an import facility,” Arseneault’s email reads. “Plus, increasing the infrastructure capacity for natural gas in New England will drive down prices of natural gas in the New England and Atlantic provinces region.”
Arseneault says premier Brian Gallant and himself have been pushing for the increase in infrastructure capacity to move ahead on this and Gallant spoke about this with the Massachusetts governor while he was in the city of Boston last week.
Saint John Councillor David Merrithew hopes the door isn’t closed entirely, “market conditions, and you’ve seen the price of oil, if you want to look for the last 20 or 25 years the same as natural gas they fluctuate a great, great amount so I am optimistic that this will happen someday,” says Merrithew.
Merrithew says there are other projects to look forward to including the construction of the water treatment plant, the $250-million modernisation of the port of the west side, the new Irving headquarters building next to the Imperial Theatre and a new liquor store at the corner of Wellington Row and Union Street.
Councillor Ray Strowbridge is disappointed, “but I’m optimistic for the fertilizer plant. They told us at their open house a couple months ago that they were still going to move forward, what happened in Sussex had no bearing on their plans so that’s what I’m hoping for.”
Repsol, the Spanish energy company that owns the majority of Canaport LNG, is putting the project on hold primarily due to low commodity prices.
The Canaport facility on Red Head Road receives LNG from ships and then it gets pumped through pipes into storage tanks. The natural gas is then pumped through the Brunswick pipeline to markets in Canada and the U.S.
