BC Political Discussion - BC Election 2017 May 9th

[Stingray2004]

Some further background on the Petronas LNG Consortium - PNW LNG.

They commenced their fed enviro review process back circa April, 2013 with CEAA and said process involves 365 days - 1 year and they were expecting final CEAA enviro certification by ~early summer, 2014.

Unfortunately, the "365-day CEAA clock" became stopped over and over again due to so-called NIMBYs - militant FNs, enviros... even the BC NDP... resulting in numerous "Stopped CEAA Clocks". Tactical delays by these groups resulted in the 1-year process dragging out for ~3 1/2 years until PNW LNG finally received their CEAA enviro certification in September, 2016.

During the interim, PNW LNG became increasingly frustrated as a result:

“The landscape is now one of uncertainty, delay and short vision, “ the then-Petronas CEO Shamsul Abbas announced via an interview with the Financial Times in late September 2014. Among those uncertainties were construction costs, taxes and regulations, threats of legal action from First Nations and delayed approvals from provincial and federal regulators.

Petronas was especially frustrated with the continuous delays in the fed CEAA process.

Back in June, 2015, the Petronas consortium actually sanctioned FID subject to the following:

1. Project Development Agreement (PDA) with provincial gov't; (actually completed and approved by BC Legislature ~ 3 weeks later albeit BC NDP opposed same claiming that BC Libs "were selling the farm")

2. Final fed CEAA enviro certification;

Again, with those 2 matters in hand at the time, shovels would have already been in the ground. The global LNG market was not dissimilar from today's global LNG market, albeit Petronas would have seen commissioning of PNW LNG by late 2020 (based upon a 64-month build-out).

BTW, both the Petronas LNG consortium as well as the Royal Dutch Shell LNG consortium have very similar characteristics and both are the 2 top "economically feasible" LNG front-runners:

1. Both sourced from prolific "wet gas" in NE BC's prolific NE BC Montney basin;

2. Both utilizing a new nat gas mainline from NE BC to NW BC's coast;

OTOH, Kitimat LNG (Chevron/Woodside Petroleum) has much higher CAPEX/OPEX matters as nat gas will be sourced from the Horn River Basin in NE BC - way up in Fort Nelson. Not much nat gas infrastructure thereto and it is a "dry gas" basin.

In any event, when PNW LNG finally received its CEAA enviro certification last September, 2016, Petronas immediately began to request its EPC bidders to re-submit bids and "sharpen their pencils". Of import, is that the fact the Petronas LNG consortium, prior to that, was already within $0.50 - $1.00/MMBtu of its "sweet spot". IOW, its OPEX comfort zone.

Unlike all other LNG exporter countries, BC is also unique in that LNG proponents also must incur extra costs:

1. Carbon tax;

2. LNG export tax;

3. Separate cost-sharing agreements with numerous FNs in terms of the LNG facility as well as FNs located along the proposed NE BC to NW BC nat gas mainline.

All of these comprise additional cost pressures esp. in terms of OPEX for the Petronas LNG consortium - likely made the difference between the $0.50 - $1.00/MMBtu OPEX and "sweet spot" that Petronas required prior to EPC bidders "sharpening their pencils" - not really a material difference.

Also of import is that the prior BC Lib gov't had established very close working relationships with all of the LNG proponents inclusive of PNW LNG. Under different political circumstances, I suspect that Petronas officials, after their new EPC bids, would have met with BC Lib gov't officials in order to "massage" the PDA and give it a "hair-cut' in order for the project to proceed and meet that "sweet spot". Especially important when considering $36 billion will be on the line.

Don't kid yourselves. Petronas officials were also aware of BC NDP "hostility" to their PNW LNG project over the previous years as I outlined in my previous post above and my gut tells me that they pulled the plug as a result of the new GreeNDP gov't. Not a coincidence IMHO. Petronas would never issue an official press release castigating the new GreeNDP gov't esp. when it has roughly $10 billion now invested in its nat gas lands in NE BC.

However, when one Petronas official, Anuar Taib, executive vice-president of Petronas, was asked if the new GreeNDP gov't was a reason for their decision to cancel PNW LNG, he let slip:

“I think (for) the review for projects as complex as our Pacific NorthWest LNG project—every factor has to be considered.

[emphasis added]

Kind of ironic that, tonight, some financial press are speculating that PNW LNG (Progress Energy) is contemplating sending its nat gas to the U.S. Gulf Coast to a newly built LNG export facility.

As for the 34,000 square feet leased by PNW LNG at Park Place (666 Burrard St.) early last year, expect all 50 - 75 staff positions to be terminated shortly and the "Sub-lease" shingle going up concurrently.

In epilogue, I also fully share the sentiments in Mike Smyth's column tonight in the Province newspaper:

Mike Smyth: NDP had nothing to do with Petronas collapse? Really?

The boss of Petronas, the giant Malaysian energy company, says the decision to cancel its $11-billion LNG plant here has nothing to do with the election of an NDP-Green government.

Sure it doesn’t. Go ahead and believe that if you want. But I prefer not to be so gullible.

The NDP was hostile to the Pacific NorthWest LNG project from the start. The party wrote to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency last year, urging the megaproject be rejected because it was a threat to salmon stocks.

The NDP continued to rip the project after it was approved: The taxes on it were too low. The company was not hiring enough local workers. The project was not sharing adequate benefits with First Nations.

NDP leader John Horgan _ now the premier _ said in February the plant was “poorly sited” and he would “find a better place and a better way” to build it if the NDP came to power.

“I will deal with those issues after the election,” Horgan said. “I’ve made that clear to the proponents.”

How was the company supposed to take that? The project had already been approved by both the federal and provincial governments, but here was Horgan vowing to “deal” with Petronas if he took over.

During the election campaign, the NDP vowed to increase the carbon tax on the project — a heavy carbon emitter — and to jack up corporate taxes as well.

The NDP also promised a “scientific review” of fracking, the controversial gas-extraction process the project relies on for its gas supply. The NDP talked about tough new environmental regulations and Horgan even refused to rule out a moratorium on fracking, a direct threat to the project’s viability.

But the election of an NDP government has nothing to do with the project being cancelled? Give me a break.

Why would Petronas say the NDP government’s policies played no role in the decision to scrap the project? What else do you expect them to say?

The company has already spent $5 billion developing its natural-gas assets in B.C. It has drilled hundreds of gas wells. It will likely need to work with the B.C. government again in the future. Why tick the NDP off?

Of course, the project could have collapsed if Christy Clark had won the election too. But keep in mind that Rich Coleman, the former energy minister, warned before the election that the project faced difficulties and the Liberals might “restart” talks on the project’s taxation deal with the government.

The chances of the NDP sweetening the deal for Petronas? Less than zero. The New Democrats vowed to do the opposite: Increase taxes and regulations on the project.

So the NDP had nothing to do with the cancellation? Tell me another fairy tale.

http://theprovince.com/news/bc-polit...ollapse-really

Edited to add: some more corroborating opinion:

James Tansey, a business professor at the University of British Columbia, said it is reasonable to conclude that politics led to Petronas’ decision, noting that no other obvious factors beyond the arrival of the NDP in power can explain the timing of the company’s decision.

“The reality is the only real change in circumstance in B.C. has been the change in government,” Mr. Tansey said in an interview. “It may have been the final straw for them.”

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...ticle35814915/

[Bcasey25raptor]

Originally Posted by Stingray2004

Some further background on the Petronas LNG Consortium - PNW LNG.

They commenced their fed enviro review process back circa April, 2013 with CEAA and said process involves 365 days - 1 year and they were expecting final CEAA enviro certification by ~early summer, 2014.

Unfortunately, the "365-day CEAA clock" became stopped over and over again due to so-called NIMBYs - militant FNs, enviros... even the BC NDP... resulting in numerous "Stopped CEAA Clocks". Tactical delays by these groups resulted in the 1-year process dragging out for ~3 1/2 years until PNW LNG finally received their CEAA enviro certification in September, 2016.

During the interim, PNW LNG became increasingly frustrated as a result:



Petronas was especially frustrated with the continuous delays in the fed CEAA process.

Back in June, 2015, the Petronas consortium actually sanctioned FID subject to the following:

1. Project Development Agreement (PDA) with provincial gov't; (actually completed and approved by BC Legislature ~ 3 weeks later albeit BC NDP opposed same claiming that BC Libs "were selling the farm")

2. Final fed CEAA enviro certification;

Again, with those 2 matters in hand at the time, shovels would have already been in the ground. The global LNG market was not dissimilar from today's global LNG market, albeit Petronas would have seen commissioning of PNW LNG by late 2020 (based upon a 64-month build-out).

BTW, both the Petronas LNG consortium as well as the Royal Dutch Shell LNG consortium have very similar characteristics and both are the 2 top "economically feasible" LNG front-runners:

1. Both sourced from prolific "wet gas" in NE BC's prolific NE BC Montney basin;

2. Both utilizing a new nat gas mainline from NE BC to NW BC's coast;

OTOH, Kitimat LNG (Chevron/Woodside Petroleum) has much higher CAPEX/OPEX matters as nat gas will be sourced from the Horn River Basin in NE BC - way up in Fort Nelson. Not much nat gas infrastructure thereto and it is a "dry gas" basin.

In any event, when PNW LNG finally received its CEAA enviro certification last September, 2016, Petronas immediately began to request its EPC bidders to re-submit bids and "sharpen their pencils". Of import, is that the fact the Petronas LNG consortium, prior to that, was already within $0.50 - $1.00/MMBtu of its "sweet spot". IOW, its OPEX comfort zone.

Unlike all other LNG exporter countries, BC is also unique in that LNG proponents also must incur extra costs:

1. Carbon tax;

2. LNG export tax;

3. Separate cost-sharing agreements with numerous FNs in terms of the LNG facility as well as FNs located along the proposed NE BC to NW BC nat gas mainline.

All of these comprise additional cost pressures esp. in terms of OPEX for the Petronas LNG consortium - likely made the difference between the $0.50 - $1.00/MMBtu OPEX and "sweet spot" that Petronas required prior to EPC bidders "sharpening their pencils" - not really a material difference.

Also of import is that the prior BC Lib gov't had established very close working relationships with all of the LNG proponents inclusive of PNW LNG. Under different political circumstances, I suspect that Petronas officials, after their new EPC bids, would have met with BC Lib gov't officials in order to "massage" the PDA and give it a "hair-cut' in order for the project to proceed and meet that "sweet spot". Especially important when considering $36 billion will be on the line.

Don't kid yourselves. Petronas officials were also aware of BC NDP "hostility" to their PNW LNG project over the previous years as I outlined in my previous post above and my gut tells me that they pulled the plug as a result of the new GreeNDP gov't. Not a coincidence IMHO. Petronas would never issue an official press release castigating the new GreeNDP gov't esp. when it has roughly $10 billion now invested in its nat gas lands in NE BC.

However, when one Petronas official, Anuar Taib, executive vice-president of Petronas, was asked if the new GreeNDP gov't was a reason for their decision to cancel PNW LNG, he let slip:



[emphasis added]

Kind of ironic that, tonight, some financial press are speculating that PNW LNG (Progress Energy) is contemplating sending its nat gas to the U.S. Gulf Coast to a newly built LNG export facility.

As for the 34,000 square feet leased by PNW LNG at Park Place (666 Burrard St.) early last year, expect all 50 - 75 staff positions to be terminated shortly and the "Sub-lease" shingle going up concurrently.

In epilogue, I also fully share the sentiments in Mike Smyth's column tonight in the Province newspaper:



http://theprovince.com/news/bc-polit...ollapse-really

Edited to add: some more corroborating opinion:



https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...ticle35814915/

Seriously, just stop it, why would a company openly say it wasn't the new government if it was actually the government?

Petronas would actually benefit from blaming the new government, anything else is naivety.

After all, you've proven to be wrong about EVERYTHING you've predicted up to this point, how about instead of being a partisan hack you start reporting reality?

Oh wait, reality doesn't agree with what YOU want so you would rather deny deny deny until the cows come home.

No one believes you anymore.

[Kisai]

Originally Posted by Bcasey25raptor

Seriously, just stop it, why would a company openly say it wasn't the new government if it was actually the government?

Petronas would actually benefit from blaming the new government, anything else is naivety.

The more likely answer is that they were already looking for an excuse to bail, but it would be bad optics to blame the NDP, even though it clearly is, given the timing.

There will be plenty of other projects that costs will be assigned to the NDP for project terminations even if they haven't gestured towards doing so. Yet.

If the Bridge replacement plas gets scrapped, that will be entirely on the NDP. If Surrey proceeds with building a Light Rail boondoggle, that will be on the NDP too. Basically anything the NDP does to stop or change a project that the contracts have already been signed, will now be blamed on the NDP even if the business case was anything else.

In most cases, a government incurs more costs and delays by gesturing that they will cancel or change the scope of a project of the previous government has already committed to by doing the engineering and environmental studies. I have no confidence in the NDP being around long enough to do something as ambitious as the Millenium Line again but I would rather see the NDP commit to Skytrain extensions already waiting than try to do anything ridiculous.

[csbvan]

A $27 billion energy project in Canada just became the latest casualty of a worldwide glut of natural gas.

Malaysia’s Petroliam Nasional Bhd abandoned on Tuesday its plans for the Pacific Northwest LNG terminal, a plant that would have liquefied Canada’s gas and sent the fuel by tanker from the western shores of British Columbia to buyers in Asia. Petronas cited market conditions in its decision.

A $27 billion energy project in Canada just became the latest casualty of a worldwide glut of natural gas.

Malaysia’s Petroliam Nasional Bhd abandoned on Tuesday its plans for the Pacific Northwest LNG terminal, a plant that would have liquefied Canada’s gas and sent the fuel by tanker from the western shores of British Columbia to buyers in Asia. Petronas cited market conditions in its decision.Pacific Northwest LNG joins a growing list of projects that have been killed in recent months by plummeting LNG prices, throwing the economics of export terminals from Australia to Russia to Mozambique into question. Prices have crashed as increasing volumes of gas from Australia and America’s shale formations hit the water, inundating the market with so much supply that analysts say demand may not catch up until the next decade.

“Developers have been trying to jump on a rather full and over-hyped bandwagon,” Muhammed Ghulam, an equity research associate at Raymond James in Houston, said by email. “There is simply too much LNG export capacity planned in North America, and cancellations, especially of Canadian projects, are likely to continue.”

Last year, Woodside Petroleum Ltd. shelved its $40 billion plan to build a floating LNG terminal off Australia’s western coast and a project in Oregon was canceled. More than two-thirds of the LNG terminals proposed to come online in the mid-2020s probably won’t get built, Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. said in May.

Petronas said the decision to drop the Pacific Northwest project was driven by “prolonged depressed prices and shifts in the energy industry.” The company and its partners -- China Petrochemical Corp., Japan Petroleum Exploration Co., Indian Oil Corp. -- remain committed to developing natural gas assets they’ve bought in Canada and “will continue to explore all options” for long-term investments, according to a statement.

Alternative Supply

The cancellation will see Japex take a loss of C$102 million ($82 million) for the year ending March 2018, it said in a statement Wednesday on its website. The Japanese company held a 10 percent stake in the Pacific Northwest project and was scheduled to receive 1 million tons a year of LNG from the proposed facility. There are “multiple alternative sources of supply” available to replace the canceled volumes, Japex said.

Petronas’s decision probably took into account an announcement earlier this month from Qatar, the world’s biggest LNG exporter, said Jason Feer, head of business intelligence at ship broker Poten & Partners Inc. in Houston. Qatar said it plans to double gas production from the giant North Field, the source of some of the cheapest gas in the world.

“Anybody trying to raise money and get contracts has to look at ‘Can I beat that? Can I match it?’” Feer said.

Petronas said in an email Wednesday that “there was no single cause or event that resulted in the decision.”


Smaller, more nimble LNG projects will probably have a better chance at surviving than the massive, multi billion-dollar ones that have traditionally been built, said Robert Norfleet, managing director at Alembic Global Advisors. Of the more than 20 LNG export terminals that have been proposed in British Columbia, only two of the smaller kind are progressing.

Meanwhile, big-ticket ones backed by companies including Chevron Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell Plc are languishing. “Our long-standing view is that Canadian projects are quite challenged,” said Samir Kayande, director at Calgary-based RS Energy Group.

Canadian Costs

The Chevron and Woodside Petroleum Ltd. owned Kitimat plant is uncompetitive in the current market, Wood Mackenzie analyst Saul Kavonic said on Wednesday. Even if the LNG market recovers, Canadian projects must achieve substantial cost decreases before they become competitive with new supplies from Qatar, Mozambique and the U.S., the consultancy noted.

Asian buyers also prefer buying gas under the more flexible contracts U.S. LNG suppliers are promising, with terms linked to U.S. benchmark gas prices. In contrast, high-cost Canadian projects like Petronas’s have typically needed long-term contracts based on higher prices linked to crude to attract financing.

“The moral of the story is, if the U.S. is entering a business, you’d better be ready to compete on cost,” said Kayande. “You can’t just sit around waiting for a higher price.”

British Columbia Energy Minister Michelle Mungall said Tuesday that the province “remains a player in the LNG sector.” She said she planned to reassure other project developers of the government’s support, including China’s CNOOC Ltd., whose Nexen Energy unit is proposing the Aurora LNG terminal in the province. That project has “every intention of moving forward,” she said.

Others aren’t as optimistic.

“LNG is now a global market that is going on everywhere else on the planet,” said Rafi Tahmazian, a fund manager at Canoe Financial in Calgary. “Canada missed out on that opportunity.”

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...a-lng-terminal

Lets be honest, the only people blaming this on a new government are political obsessives who want to twist everything to partisan politics. Yawn.

[cornholio]

The logical choice is that they did not want to make this a political issue. The best course of action was to wait until the election was over (almost 100% this is exactly what they did and knew for a long time they would pull out). This pleases the Liberals and is the rational thing to do. Then they pull out and make sure to say this has nothing to do with the new government (which it most certainly does not), they then please the NDP/Greens and again make the most rational choice.

Everyone is happy (or as happy as they could be), Petronas didn't play politics and took the most rational route that inflicted the least possible harm to everyone involved. This will score them points for when they deal with other governments/businesses/partners else where on this planet (including here if they decide to come back). People are not blind and they see everyone's track record globally, if they see a company (no matter how large) dealing with everyone's best interest at heart they will be more open to deal with them fairly. That's a priceless position to put your self into no matter how large or small of a company you are. It also shows long term vision from their leadership.

[Stingray2004]

This following tidbit, from my post yesterday, is even more relevant today:

Originally Posted by Stingray2004

BTW, both the Petronas LNG consortium as well as the Royal Dutch Shell LNG consortium have very similar characteristics and both are the 2 top "economically feasible" LNG front-runners:

1. Both sourced from prolific "wet gas" in NE BC's prolific NE BC Montney basin;

2. Both utilizing a new nat gas mainline from NE BC to NW BC's coast;

Petronas LNG consortium already has ~$20 billion in sunk costs here in BC to date, all inclusive, as I have previously outlined. One consortium member, Japex, with a 10% interest thereto, intended to utilize their proportionate 1 million ton/annum LNG off-take, for example, for a planned nat-gas electricity generating plant in Japan's Fukushima prefecture with a commissioning date circa 2020. The adjacent Soma LNG receiving terminal is currently under construction.

Yet, after ~$20 billion in sunk costs, the Petronas LNG consortium did not defer FID, which is common practice... but actually "cancelled" the project. Have not seen same on the global LNG scene, under similar circumstances. Ever. Typically, even with much less sunk costs, LNG FIDs are deferred globally. Common practice.

To re-iterate, both the proposed Petronas LNG proposal as well as the Royal Dutch Shell LNG proposals here in BC had very similar characteristics. Yet today, Royal Dutch Shell's global CEO, Ben Van Beurden, told investors in a conference call today:

Shell Still Thinks Canada LNG Project Could Be a Go, Says CEO
Bloomberg

July 27, 2017, 7:06 pm

Royal Dutch Shell Plc said it hasn’t written off its Canadian liquefied natural gas project in Kitimat, British Columbia, yet as a global supply glut killed off a competing project earlier this week.

LNG Canada, which is also backed by Mitsubishi Corp., PetroChina Co. and Korea Gas Corp., is still weighing an investment decision that’s expected by early 2019, Shell’s Chief Executive Officer Ben Van Beurden said on a conference call Thursday.

"We need to get the timing properly right -- we think we can," he said. "If we look at an investment decision in the next 18 months or so, this is going to be a project that could start producing right at the moment when the spot market, the short-term market is getting very tight again."

The comments follow the cancellation of a $27 billion LNG project in the same region on the northern British Columbia coast by Malaysia’s Petroliam Nasional Bhd earlier this week.

Van Beurden, who said he’d once considered the project the company’s best in Canada, added that Shell is trying to get costs down to a "break-even price that is very resilient - this needs to be a project that can survive also under downcycles."

The concept has "many fundamental advantages" including a "feed gas position that is somewhat more stranded than anywhere else in North America," as well as proximity to premium markets, he said.

Van Beurden sounded more bullish about LNG Canada’s prospects.
"If you have the best possible project on the cost of supply curve for new projects, then you are a little less obsessed with the timing because you will be able to get it into the market," he said.

Again, 2 very similar projects with 2 very competent global LNG majors. Yet 2 very different positions. Ergo, the Petronas LNG consortium cancellation provides too many "red flags" suggesting much more behind the scene has not yet been disclosed.

Becoming quite obvious that the new GreeNDP gov't was going to throw "poison pills" toward the PNW LNG project, which the BC NDP opposed from the outset, as outlined by Mike Smyth's article posted in my previous post in order to "kill it" or "death by 1,000-cuts".

As a matter of fact, 2 other knowledgeable sources today have also corroborated that the BC NDP's opposition to the PNW LNG project as well as the the new GreeNDP gov't is the "straw that finally broke the camel's back" in terms of PNW LNG's cancellation. Won't post same here as some might consider it "hearsay".

Based upon their previous track record on this project, I highly suspect that the financial press in Kuala Lumpur will eventually elicit actual reasons (or the "straight goods") from senior Petronas officials albeit might take at least a month. Will be quite interesting.

BTW, tonight, the Globe & Mail is also reporting that a New York-based political risk firm seems to corroborate the foregoing as well:

While the NDP – and Petronas – have played down the impact of politics on the company's decision, one analyst said politics is often relevant to investment decisions on such projects.

In an e-mail response, Divya Reddy of the Eurasia Group consultancy – a political-risk firm in New York – said politics do factor into these kinds of decisions, especially with large, capital-intensive LNG projects under current weak market conditions.

"It basically means that projects have to be ultracompetitive for companies to sanction them, and politics can play a significant role in either making or breaking that competitiveness. And the recent election in B.C. introduced still more political risk given more tepid reception for LNG by the NDP-led government compared with the Liberals."

In hindsight, the Petronas consortium's LNG cancellation should come as no surprise - the BC NDP has opposed it from the outset and the 3 new BC NDP ministers of Energy, Mines, & Environment respectively are all well known hard-core enviros as well as SJWs - no background/obvious understanding of resource development, finance, business, economics, etc.

C'est la vie.

[cornholio]

Petrona's never had 20 billion in sunk costs here. I mean seriously did you just say they sunk 20 billion dollars here and with a straight face?

Your talking about sub 100 mill and I am being generous. Resource companies inflate reported costs because they get to write them off as a result of the way the government structures the contracts to extract the resources. The more billions they can add to the official cost the more billions they can extract at a later date royalty free, and as far as the government is concerned the higher the reported cost the better because it makes them look good for attracting massive investments. But there is a lot of hot air in these numbers.

Also Stingray2004, were you going to donate that $100 to the Communist Party of Canada or did you back out of that bet? I cant remember.

[Stingray2004]

Breaking News... Christy Clark has just resigned as leader of the BC Libs...

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by Stingray2004

Breaking News... Christy Clark has just resigned as leader of the BC Libs...

What!?

Now you have me speechless!

[Common Sense]

With Christy Clark gone, and her seat vacant, the problem of the speaker being partisan is no longer an issue, at least for now. The seat count is now the NDP/Greens with 44 and BC Liberals with 42. With an NDP as speaker, the seat count is now is 43-42 for the NDP/Greens.

[Stingray2004]

Further to the cancellation of the Petronas consortium of their proposed LNG terminal on Lelu Island, more corroborating evidence that actually the new GreeNDP gov't was the "final straw that broke the camel's back" aside from their hard-core enviro allies:

Pacific NorthWest LNG, 2012-2017: How to kill an LNG project in Canada

Financial Post
July 28, 2017

Claudia Cattaneo
Geoffrey Morgan

<snippet>

Yet sources close to the company, who agreed to share information on condition of anonymity due to confidentiality commitments, said the Malaysian state-owned company and its partners – Japan’s Japex, China’s Sinopec, Indian Oil Corp., and PetroleumBrunei – had been losing hope for months and were distressed about the continuing legal challenges, local opposition that would have required police protection to proceed with any work, coming policy changes and a sense that they were just not welcome.

<snippet>

The company went back to the drawing board after receiving its permit and tried to re-configure the project to avoid juvenile salmon habitat at the mouth of the Skeena River, adding further costs. It also doubled down on efforts to win aboriginal approvals, after one band rejected an offer of $1.2 billion in long term benefits.

Yet its efforts were met with continued pushback.

Protesters camped on Lelu Island, where the project was to be sited, making it difficult to do preliminary work.

A proposed pipeline to carry natural gas from the Montney gas fields to the plant was facing new regulatory hurdles after environmentalists, funded by SkeenaWild Conservation Trust, won a case before the Federal Court of Appeal July 20 that the provincially approved pipeline needed to be re-considered by the National Energy Board because it involved gas exports overseas.

In addition, the project’s federal permit was facing a judicial review after aboriginal leaders questioned whether Ottawa acted properly in approving the project.

Still more trouble loomed on the political front. Project proponents closely followed the election in B.C. of the NDP/Green coalition and were worried about hostile comments made during the election campaign by NDP leader John Horgan and his Green Party allies.

<snippet>

Another source familiar with LNG proponents’ thinking said the presence of a new government – and with the Green Party key to keeping them in office — “certainly didn’t help.”

A big worry was the prospect of re-locating the facility to appease environmental and aboriginal opponents, which would have involved more environmental reviews.

There were also concerns about escalating carbon prices, which further undermined the project’s economics, as prices for the commodity had collapsed and as the new government wanted the carbon tax to be applied to methane emissions from gas production.

Carbon prices are a concern for other B.C. LNG projects too that are restructuring to reduce costs, one executive said. The B.C. projects have to be competitive with those under construction in the U.S. Gulf, so any increase in carbon taxes need to be offset by other tax reductions, the executive said.

The continuing and escalating demands were assessed by Pacific NorthWest partners, who reviewed the situation at the highest levels of their companies and recently expressed their desire to get out, a person with direct knowledge said.

http://business.financialpost.com/co...#comments-area

[Stingray2004]

Clark's resignation Friday certainly surprised everyone including apparently her own BC Lib caucus. Based upon a telephone interview Friday tonight with Global BC's Keith Baldrey, Clark confided that if the GreeNDP gov't indeed lasted a couple of years that the proverbial knives would likely begin to come out from caucus.

Ergo, Clark wanted to leave on her own terms after reflection. Certainly Clark, had she won the 2017 election, would have resigned and left office before the 2021 election. In reality, preems have a shelf life of 10 years at the max.

Suspect that numerous candidates will emerge, down the road, for Clark's replacement. Clark's resignation will undoubtedly change BC's political dynamic.

But, should she decide to take the jump, former Surrey mayor and current fed Con MP Dianne Watts would likely be considered the front-runner and further change BC's political dynamic.

So who is Dianne Watts and what is her electoral time-line to date?

Watts was first elected to Surrey council back in 1996. Watts later had a falling out with right-wing mayor Doug McCallum and ran as an independent mayoral candidate in the 2005 muni election. One must remember that both Watts and Doug McCallum were part of the Surrey municipal party SET at the time, before she broke ranks. Surprisingly Watts won in 2005 but faced animosity from the SET party dominated Surrey municipal council shortly thereafter.

Nevertheless, Watts, also surprisingly, rekindled relationships and later brought SET Surrey councillors aboard forming a new Surrey muni party called Surrey First - which dominates Surrey municipal politics to this day.

Moreover, Watts also brought long-time centre-left councillor Judy Villeneuve (former NDP candidate) as well centre-left councillor Barinder Rasode into the Surrey First fold as well. Both had previously been associated with the Surrey NDP farm team SCE, which is now basically dead.

Watts transformed Surrey from the perception a red-neck suburban municipality into its own. Watts' legacy includes turning old north Surrey into a future vibrant downtown core - condominium and office skyscrapers are beginning to dominate the skyline.

Watts ran as mayor in 2005, 2008, and 2011 and in the latter 2 elections received 80% and 86% popular vote shares respectively. Moreover, Watts was among the finalists for the 2010 World Mayor prize and Watts was ultimately selected as "the fourth-best mayor in the world".

After the May, 2009 BC election, the BC Libs faced a debacle with the HST affair. Interestingly enough, an Angus Reid Strategies opinion poll, several months later on September 5, 2009, had this result for following question with net score results:

If Gordon Campbell were to step down, do you feel each of the following would make a good premier?

1. Dianne Watts, then Surrey Mayor +14

2. Christy Clark, then radio talk show host and former Liberal +1

3. Mike Farnworth, NDP -2

4. Mike De Jong, Lib -3

5. Gregor Robertson, Vancouver mayor -9

6. Colin Hansen, Lib -11

7. Adrian Dix, NDP -11

8. John Horgan, NDP -13

9. Carole James -13

10. Kevin Falcon, Lib -17

11. Rich Coleman, Lib -21

[link now broken]

When BC Lib preem Gordon Campbell resigned later in late 2010. Watts' name was again highly touted and bandied about in the media as a potential contender for replacement. However, many pundits suggested that Watts was not interested at the time (including myself) considering that the BC Libs were suffering internal turmoil with the HST fiasco and Watts prized her mayoral position and wanted to complete her ambitions in Surrey with another 3-year term.

On November 5, 2010, Ipsos Reid released the poll results of "potential" BC Lib contenders with public impression net positive/net negative scores:

1. Dianne Watts +30
2. Carole Taylor +21
...
5. Christy Clark -14



On or about December 10, 2010, Watts confirmed, in an exclusive interview, that she had no interest in the leadership of the BC Libs at the time. 3 interesting matters stand out from that interview though:

1. The Global BC TV journalist interviewing was Jas Johal, who was elected in the 2017 election in Richmond-Queensborough;

2. Reference therein to a then Ipsos poll that 65% of BCers wanted Watts to run for the BC Lib leadership;

3. Watts stating that she would have endorsed former BC Liberal finance minister Carole Taylor in the BC Lib leadership race. That's key because Carole Taylor was a long-time federal Liberal and her now deceased spouse was Art Phillips, former Vancouver Centre Liberal MP. Ergo, Watts has always been considered a red tory/blue liberal on the political spectrum.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_jFML49WLM

Watts has always been very popular, non-devisive, intelligent and well-respected. Certainly Carole Taylor could also be categorized in that same mold. To boot, both could be considered as "Tier 1" type candidates and aside from those two, cannot see any other similar Tier 1 leadership candidates, of any political stripe, going back ~60 years.

Watts later won mayoral re-election in November, 2011 and finished her Surrey mayoral term in November, 2014. At the outset, Watts stated that she would only run 3 terms for mayor and she thus completed same.

In 2015, both the federal Liberals and federal Cons courted Watts to run under their banner for the October, 2015 election in the new riding of South Surrey-White Rock after federal redistribution. That area has always had centre-right demographics and elected PCs, Reform, Canadian Alliance, and Con MPs. Without checking, I suspect that the last time that this area was majority fed Lib territory was back in 1968 during original Trudeau-mania.

Harper came out to BC numerous times to court Watts and finally succeeded in bagging her as a candidate in SS-WR with Watts also likely expecting to be a fed Con cabinet minister in a re-elected Con gov't.

However, on e-day October, 2015, the anti-Harper Con tide, pro-JT Liberal tide was so strong, Watts almost lost - she won by a 2.5% margin over her fed Liberal rival Judy Higginbothan, who was also a former Surrey councillor between 1983 and 2008 - also a centre-right "blue" Liberal. Had Watts not been the Con candidate here in 2015, undoubtedly the fed Liberals would have bagged another seat.

Since then, Watts has been a Con opposition MP, with a critic role, but essentially has a low profile with almost zero media exposure in BC. Watts will likely continue in that same role after the 2019 fed election. 5 - 6 hour flights between the west coast and Ottawa are also apparently taking a toll on Watts.

Back in April, 2017 of this year, Watts had an interview with an obscure media outlet known as "Surrey604" and some of her statements re:Ottawa stood out thereto:

“The commute is very trying because you are taking red eye flights and you get in at 2:00 AM in the morning, which because of the time change makes the hours extraordinarily long. You often don’t get home for dinner until 9:30 – 10 o’clock at night, and this on a regular basis.

There isn’t a lot of down time; so that is a challenge especially with family.

I don’t know what the future holds. Right now, I am going back and forth to Ottawa, I have been elected for a four year term and we will see what happens at that junction.”

http://surrey604.com/2017/04/23/dian...ational-stage/

On her social media Twitter feed (whomever is actually paying attention to same these days) Watts has always been fed politics. But when the GreeNDP accord was finalized on May 30, 2017 Watts, out of the norm, tweeted as follows:

Dianne Watts MP‏
Verified account
@DianneLWatts  May 30

It's still a back room deal that the voters were not engaged in !

Thereafter, a weekly BC political broadcast by Shaw-TV, hosted by Vancouver Sun political columnist Vaughn Palmer had Province political columnist Mike Smyth on as a guest. The question of Clark's leadership came up and Mike Smyth stated that he had spoken with many in the BC Liberal Party and "the name Dianne Watts keeps coming up and I hear that she may be interested this time."

Moreover, Smyth stated - para-phrasing that "Watts is one candidate that the BC NDP fears". Was surprised at his statements at the time. I actually expected Clark to be around for at least another year.

And then today's announcement. Have now also seen, on social media, Dianne Watts name bandied about by both fed Liberal voters and fed Con voters.

And heard Province political columnist Mike Smyth on CKNW on Friday again mentioning Dianne Watts name exclusively, which Global BC news is also carrying:

According to Smyth ...one name keeps popping up, and that is Conservative MP Dianne Watts.

“I have had a lot of interest in it though; her name does come up, and that’s one name that’ll have the NDP shaking in their boots, I think if she was to come in, because she was a very popular mayor when she was the mayor of Surrey.”

http://globalnews.ca/news/3633706/wh...e-bc-liberals/

Still very early days. But if Watts actually decides to enter the race... I would make Watts the odds-on-favourite on winning same.

[Stingray2004]

Bit of a side-bar, but still kinda related to the BC political provincial scene. Vision Vancouver councillor Geoff Meggs resigned his Van City council seat to become BC NDP leader Horgan's new chief of staff. Ergo, a Van City council seat is now vacant, which will require a by-election now apparently scheduled for October 17, 2017.

Bit of a background to the foregoing. Former COPE councillor Jean Swanson will apparently running as an independent albeit apparently back by COPE.

One City, which ran one councillor during the 2014 Van City election (RJ Aquino), already has a candidate lined up - former Van City employee and homeless advocate. Basically a fringe left-wing party.

As for the NPA, Vision Vancouver, and the Greens ... just speculation now in terms of potential candidacy.

But here is where Geoff Meggs resignation makes matters interesting... Justason Market Intelligence has just released an opinion poll on the forthcoming by-election.

Sample size: n = 400 with decided vote at n = 209;

Methodology: Opt-in online panel;

Poll voting options: Green, NPA, Vision Vancouver and One City; (should have included COPE as well IMHO);

IMHO, most eyebrow-raising factoid arising from the JMI opinion poll was that Vision Vancouver is in 4th place:



http://www.justasonmi.com/?p=5357

[WarrenC12]

I'm shocked the Greens are polling so high. If you pay attention to municipal politics and voting record, Adriane Carr appears completely out to lunch on most issues. Way off what the provincial or federal greens would support.

Also, this should have it's own thread.

[Stingray2004]

It's Insights West... and it's also still the dog days of summer... but their poll today on potential BC Lib leadership candidates still corroborates my above post about Dianne Watts...

Watts is the only prospective leader to clearly outperform the governing BC NDP (30% to 25% in favour of the BC Liberals, or 44% to 37% when undecided voters are removed).

“When British Columbians ponder the possibility of Dianne Watts as leader of the BC Liberals, the party’s fortunes change dramatically when compared with other possible contenders,” says Mario Canseco, Vice President, Public Affairs, at Insights West. “The Watts-led BC Liberals would enjoy a significantly higher level of support from voters aged 55 and over and residents of the Lower Mainland.”

https://insightswest.com/wp-content/...BCL_Tables.pdf

[Tetsuo]

Watts would be a brilliant choice for the BC Libs, there's no future for her in the federal CPC, still think she should have ran as a Liberal in either WR or Cloverdale riding(s).
Barely has any media attention and it would be a shame to see her fizzle out from mayor to opposition MP.

She has rural/suburban appeal, and can show Surrey's change for the city folk.

What about Sam Sullivan? A bit too "city" for the BC Libs, but would help a lot in the GVRD ridings. Plus removes chance for NDP to play SJW diversity politics.

Ron.

[whatnext]

A timely reminder of why the BC Liberals needed to be kicked to the curb by voters. A shadowy relationship between former BC Lib minster Teresa Wat and an opaque Chinese corporation makes for fascinating reading:

...The opening of a gallery and North American headquarters here by Poly Culture was the culmination of intense behind-the-scenes courting by local politicians — especially Liberal MLA Teresa Wat, then B.C.’s international trade minister — and was hailed in government documents as a major economic win and “significant day for British Columbia in its relationship with China.”

But at a time when Canada’s review of foreign investments has come under increased scrutiny — such as in the case of Anbang, an opaquely structured insurance corporation with links to China’s leading families and military figures — questions abound about the long-term investment plans by Poly Culture and China Poly Group, a company with deep military roots and a controversial past.

Founded in the early 1990s, China Poly Group boasts $95 billion in assets, according to Fortune magazine, and 76,000 employees in 100 countries. It operates in many industries, including arms and explosives, real estate development, arts and culture, infrastructure building and resource extraction...

...National security experts say Canadian officials should proceed with caution.

“Canadians generally, including all governments and the private sector, should treat our relations with China and Chinese companies differently than we do with companies from other countries,” Richard Fadden, director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service from 2009 to 2013, said in an email.

Without referring specifically to China Poly Group, Fadden said that Chinese companies were more likely to be “up to something that we would not approve of” than “virtually any other country.”

“I am suggesting that more due diligence is warranted,” Fadden said.

Postmedia asked Wat — who judged Poly Culture’s launch in B.C. as so important that she urged then-premier Christy Clark to make time to meet the parent company’s chairman — to sit for an interview for this story.

Wat, who is now the B.C. Liberal critic for trade, requested emailed questions instead....
http://vancouversun.com/news/local-n...up-shop-in-b-c