St. Albert could net some spinoff business from a proposed $4-billion liquefied natural gas plant in Sturgeon County if it can get its new employment lands online, says the head of the local chamber of commerce.
Sturgeon County Mayor Tom Flynn confirmed Thursday during the State of the County breakfast at the Morinville Community Cultural Centre that a $4-billion LNG plant set for construction in the county is working towards regulatory approval from the Alberta Energy Regulator.
“There is a company from overseas,” Flynn said in an interview, one he and county commissioner Peter Tarnawsky had spoken with during a visit to China about 18 months ago.
“They’ve tied up a piece of property in Sturgeon County and they’re in the process of initiating the application to the Alberta Energy Regulator.”
While Flynn and Tarnawsky would not disclose the company behind this project, evidence suggests that the company is likely Gascana AB Energy Ltd., which, back in 2014 along with Gascana-Sino Industrial Park Administrative Committee Inc. and the Edmonton Economic Development Corp. (EEDC), announced plans to build a $4-billion LNG plant in Sturgeon County.
The EEDC said at the time that the project was a joint venture between the three parties that included a 1,000-acre industrial park in Sturgeon County and a business incubator in Edmonton. If everything was built, the project would create about 2,000 permanent jobs in the region.
It’ll be a major boost to the economy if it happens, said Neil Shelly, executive director of the Alberta’s Industrial Heartland Association, who was familiar with the project. Not only was it a $4-billion investment, but it would also likely employ about 3,500 construction workers.
“More strategically for Alberta, it’s really going to help out with identifying how to get some of our products to market.”
Alberta has a lot of natural gas but few ways to get it to customers, Shelly said. China’s massive growth means it needs lots of gas, but getting it there usually requires pipelines and huge refrigeration plants built at the coast. The Gascana plan has proposed chilling the gas to a liquid state here and shipping it to the coast in specialized rail cars instead.
“It could be a real trendsetter for how we access new markets.”
Gascana has also proposed to become a natural gas processor, which would let it supply gas to other local companies to produce methanol and other products, Shelly said.
Shelly said projects like this typically take a year or two to get regulatory approval plus a few more to get built, meaning this one was likely at least five years away.
“We’re really in a turbulent time right now in regards to energy prices,” he added, and a shift in oil (which is often interchangeable with natural gas) could delay or advance construction.
A project such as this could mean a lot of business for the service and manufacturing industry in St. Albert, said St. Albert and District Chamber of Commerce president Lynda Moffat.
“I think we’ll have more of an opportunity to have those kinds of businesses locate here when we see that empty land coming on.”
