Andrew Leach, an energy and environmental economist at the University of Alberta, said changes in the natural gas market give a new northern pipeline “zero chance” of being economically viable moving forward.
“It’s all gas markets,” he said in an interview. “If you go back to when the project was proposed, we were expecting to be an LNG (liquefied natural gas) importer. In 2006 or 2007, we had natural gas prices that were double digits, and people were expecting that we would be the highest-priced gas market in the world.”
“So, at that point, you’re hunting for anything that would allow for cheaper natural gas. I read that if you had $9 natural gas in Alberta, you could make that project work. Right now, we’re at $3 or $4 natural gas in Alberta, and at some points last year we had $2 gas, so I just don’t think it makes that list.”