It’s a new world — a fracked gas world — and it’s much worse than we predicted.
BC has entered the global LNG market at the precise moment the rules changed, according to Fatih Birol, head of the International Energy Administration. It’s a buyer’s market now, Birol says, and oversupply from new production flooding the market is causing prices to crash, even dropping to below zero in Canada this fall – something we didn’t realize was possible.
More than ten years of political decisions have created a provincial economy that relies on fracking, transporting, and exporting natural gas. Like it or not, we’re now chained to the commodity-price roller coaster of supply and demand, and we will all suffer the consequences.
Is the LNG boom going bust?
Investors and politicians alike were counting on ever-growing demand for LNG to keep prices high and profits rolling in. Instead, fracking operations are cutting back production while Reuters and the Financial Post predict a global multi-year supply glut.
When the high rollers lose their appetites, resource economies like ours go hungry. China has little need for Canadian LNG after making a deal for Russian gas, Bloomberg reports. US buyers are balking at Trump’s tariffs on Canadian energy. The end result is tonnes of product sitting on the dock, waiting for a buyer.
In Kitimat, on BC’s north coast, the LNG Canada plant (which is not owned by Canadians, despite its name) started running in June, and it’s nowhere near its export goal. One hundred kilometres north at the Nass River estuary, the as-yet-unbuilt Ksi Lisims plant waits its turn.
Insatiable LNG
Is the LNG boom going bust? Our politicians retooled the entire economy, pushing massive, destructive projects like the Coastal GasLink pipeline, the Prince Rupert Gas Transmission pipeline, the Site C Hydro Dam, and the North Coast Transmission Line to feed the insatiable energy demand for supercooling and pressurizing LNG for export. Even if LNG exports never make a profit, every BC Hydro customer will be paying for it for years to come.
LNG export facilities are not good neighbours. By all accounts, it’s like living next door to an industrial-sized meth lab. “Emissions” is a polite term for the filthy petroleum fumes, constant deafening noise, and 100-meter tall flares that can last for days. Toxic smoke chokes residents and covers farms, waterways, birds, and wildlife. The long-term effects will be even more devastating to the planet.
The world has changed, but the Province, like a gambling addict, is doubling down
We’re told that these operations comply with the law, but the law is full of gaping loopholes.
Rising opposition
This fall, the Province approved both the Ksi Lisims facility and its supply line, the Prince Rupert Gas Transmission pipeline, which is planned to run from the fracking fields in northeastern BC to the north coast.
Both projects are facing a barrage of opposition. The Metlakatla First Nation has filed for judicial review of the Ksi Lisims decision, saying the approval is based on “speculative economic concepts” and ignores “mounting evidence” that it’s not economically viable. Lax Kw’alaams Band filed its own petition citing harm to its rights, lands, and waters “in perpetuity.” Ecojustice is taking the lead on two more court actions to quash PRGT approval.
Still more LNG projects are in the works, but Jeremy Valeriote, the MLA for West Vancouver–Sea to Sky, is calling on the Province to cancel future fossil fuel follies, including LNG Canada Phase 2, Cedar LNG, and Woodfibre LNG, which is now under construction.
The world has changed, but the Province, like a gambling addict, is doubling down, with 651 new fracked gas wells approved in the first six months of 2025.
Given the inevitable, irreversible damage these projects will inflict, the quick demise of the LNG economy may be too much to hope for.
