Resource Works

A $22 billion LNG project nobody had heard of showed up in Prince Rupert this week, and one of the world's biggest shipbuilders is behind it.

South Korea's Hanwha Ocean, the company that built the world's first floating LNG platform, has signed on to a proposal by Kanata Clean for an ambitious "energy multiplex" on B.C.'s north coast: liquefied natural gas, hydrogen, and electricity all produced on one site, with carbon dioxide shipped to Alberta to be stored underground. Alberta's Frog Lake First Nation is a majority shareholder.

There's reason for cautious optimism and reason for skepticism. South Korea, the world's third-largest LNG importer, is scrambling for reliable supply after the latest Middle East energy crisis, and Canada is exactly the kind of stable supplier it wants. But Hanwha has been open that its Canadian investments hinge on winning a massive submarine contract with Ottawa. Lose that bid, and the LNG plans may go with it.

Real momentum, or a bargaining chip in a much bigger deal? Worth watching closely.

Korean conglomerate backs Prince Rupert LNG proposal Energy multiplex would produce LNG, hydrogen and electricity

Nearly nine in ten British Columbians want new energy infrastructure built, and most of them want it built faster.

A new poll from Canada Action, conducted by Nanos, puts the numbers beyond doubt:

👉 87% support building energy projects efficiently,
👉 81% want Canada to be a preferred natural gas supplier to the world,
👉 80% specifically back exports to Asia and Europe to cut global reliance on authoritarian regimes.

Here's the part that stands out. 60% of British Columbians don't realize natural gas is already the province's third-largest export. So the support for this industry is overwhelming, even though most people don't yet know how big a role it already plays in their economy.

If support is this strong before people know the full story, what happens when they do?

Read more: newsfilecorp.com/release/301907/New-Poll-Finds-Strong-Majority-of-British-Columbians-Support-LNG-Projects-Energy-Development-and-Exports

If you have a pension, you might already own a piece of Canadian LNG.

Shell’s 40% stake in the LNG Canada terminal at Kitimat is for sale, and some of the world’s largest infrastructure investors are competing for it.

Apollo, Blackstone and KKR all manage money for pension systems, the retirement savings of teachers, public servants and millions of ordinary people.

Closer to home, AIMCo already co-owns the Coastal GasLink pipeline and manages over $115 billion for 31 Alberta pension and government funds. A built, operating terminal that throws off steady revenue for decades is exactly the kind of asset a pension fund exists to hold.

If you’re planning for retirement, say thanks to Canadian LNG!

Read more: https://resourceworks.com/lng-canada-the-investment-landscape/

Ksi Lisims LNG just cleared two of its biggest hurdles in a single week.

A second German buyer signed on, bringing locked-in sales to 58% of the project’s capacity. And two First Nations that had challenged the project in court, Lax Kw’alaams and Metlakatla, agreed to drop their legal challenges after signing benefits agreements.

The difference maker: this is an Indigenous-owned project on Nisga’a treaty land. A $20-billion investment decision could come before the end of the year.

The same B.C. town that built a salmon cannery in 1889 just opened a seaweed biorefinery.

That's Port Edward on the North Coast, and the new Cascadia Seaweed Biorefinery is a glimpse of where coastal work is heading. While old-growth fights, the looming salmon farm ban and shrinking fishing allocations leave a lot of coastal workers anxious about the future, kelp farming is growing quietly in the background, and it's Indigenous-led.

The operation runs on a partnership between Cascadia Seaweed and the Metlakatla Development Corporation. Lab-cultured kelp spores get set just below the ocean surface, grown with no additives at all, then harvested and turned into products that feed agriculture and livestock markets worldwide. It's built on knowledge Indigenous Peoples have held for thousands of years.

It might not reshape the provincial economy. But for the coastal communities that depend on year-round work, not just a tourist season, it's one more reason to stay.

Building coastal resiliency Cascadia Seaweed Biorefinery to support Indigenous-led ocean-based economies and regenerative agriculture

Walk into any refinery, pulp mill or power plant in Canada. The pressure vessels, the steel, the welded pipe, none of it assembled itself. It was built by people working in trades most of us have never heard of and couldn't describe.

Boilermakers, ironworkers, pipefitters, welders. They've kept the lights on, the fuel flowing and the mills running for more than 165 years. The work happens at heights, in confined spaces, up the sides of mountains, and it takes years of apprenticeship and certification to do. These workers are not interchangeable.

Robert MacIntosh is one example of what that life looks like. He started at 15 in a Nova Scotia steel works in 1941 and spent five decades building the industrial backbone of the country, coast to coast, earning the first Red Seal for boilermakers in Canada along the way.

The trades that hold everything up are also the ones most people never think about. The question now is whether the next generation will be there to carry them: resourceworks.com/the-trades-that-hold-everything-up/