BC’s LNG Fraud

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BC’s LNG Fraud

[ http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2016/11/10/BC ... ign=101116 ]

Behind the Trump-like hype: fleeced taxpayers and a surge of climate pollution.

By Andrew Nikiforuk, TheTyee.ca November 10, 2016

Andrew Nikiforuk is an award-winning journalist who has been writing about the energy industry for two decades and is a contributing editor to The Tyee. Find his previous stories here: [ http://thetyee.ca/Bios/Andrew_Nikiforuk/ ]

Premier’s big subsidies, revenue claims, just don’t add up: Rendering of proposed Woodfibre LNG plant near Squamish.

Every day, methane promoters in British Columbia’s government manage to out-trump Donald Trump.

The hoopla over the $1.6-billion Woodfibre LNG terminal, which will industrialize Howe Sound and the city of Squamish, illustrates just how far the Christy Clark-led BC Liberal government will go to subvert the truth.

The government billed the event as maker of economic prosperity and the beginning of a winning fight against climate change.

Both claims read like Trump balderdash with no basis in reality.

In fact, every B.C. citizen should be alarmed by the Woodfibre LNG deal because it will fleece every taxpayer.

Back in 2013 Premier Christy Clark promised that LNG would make the province rich, create a $100-billion savings fund, erase all debt and employ tens of thousands of people.

None of the hype materialized, nor will it for the long foreseeable future. Thanks to a global methane glut and a collapse in methane prices by 75 per cent, the LNG industry faces “an extremely challenging business environment.”

According to Forbes, Australia’s LNG industry is now bleeding billions of dollars of cash and earning nothing for the owners of the resource: Australians. [ http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/s ... en&ct=clnk ] It is also noteworthy that Asian markets have contracted four per cent despite the fall in LNG prices.

As a consequence, no company has made a final investment decision on 20 LNG proposals in B.C. — with the single exception of Woodfibre, a company owned by a Singapore tycoon, Sukanto Tanoto.

It is telling that one of Tanoto’s companies, Asian Agri, has been found guilty of tax evasion. (But that hasn’t caused Clark to rethink who she invites to do business in B.C.) [ http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014 ... ments.html ]

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