Extensive comments from BH's Strategic & Regulatory Affairs...

Extensive comments from BH's Strategic & Regulatory Affairs Advisor on BH/BP progress ...

The Nova Scotia Utility and Review Board has given the nod to a 62-km pipeline, part of a multi-billion-dollar liquid natural gas project being proposed for eastern Nova Scotia.

Bear Paw Pipeline Corporation Inc., a subsidiary of Australian company Liquefied Natural Gas Limited, announced the approval, one of several that the company is seeking, on Wednesday.

The pipeline would carry natural gas from Goldboro in Guysborough County, to a liquefication plant and shipping terminal on a 327-acre site in Point Tupper, in western Cape Breton.

With several U.S. and Canadian regulatory hurdles cleared, the company is continuing to pursue government consent, including from the provincial environment department.

“We had filed an environment assessment a little while ago, and the minister had requested further information, so we’re going to be resubmitting in the fall,” said Paul MacLean, strategic and regulatory affairs advisor for Bear Paw and for Bear Head LNG Corporation. (FYI - additional information requirements literally emerged after BH filed, hence need to close out.)

“We have, potentially, some approvals from the Department of Fisheries, federally, and from Transport Canada — again, potentially.”

“The key to making our final investment decision would be securing a path for natural gas to get to the facility. So as soon as we make those arrangements, and secure an agreement with a supplier, then we’ll move to FID (final investment decision).”

“The facility that we’re developing at Bear Head is a tolling facility — we’ll never actually own a molecule of natural gas,” MacLean said. “It’s providing a service to producers, so we’re working with them to identify the best transportation pipeline to get the gas to the Bear Head LNG facility. Ultimately, they (the producers) will hold the contract for the transportation.”

If the pipeline, plant, and shipping terminal are constructed, they would be joined to the North American grid. Natural gas would move through them, from inland Nova Scotia fields and potentially from offshore fields, to and from the US, and to overseas markets. (Er yes ... and potentially central/ western Canada)

At the plant, natural gas would be transformed into a liquid form, shrinking to 1/600th of its original volume, which would enable it to be shipped by sea or overland in places where pipelines do not exist.

MacLean is pleased with the approval process in Nova Scotia.

“It has been great for Bear Paw, working through this process with the Utility and Review Board,” he said.

“We’ve stayed in contact with key stakeholders, like the Micmac First Nations communities, represented by the KMK (Kwilmu'kw Maw-klusuaqn, also known as the Micmac Rights Initiative), and with the Nova Scotia Native Council, as well as others in the Strait area that have expressed interest in the development of the project.

“Working with those groups has been a positive experience.”

http://thechronicleherald.ca/busine...point-tupper-pipeline-gets-go-ahead-from-uarb

Trapped gas in the west ... TransCanada pipeline having surplus distribution capacity ... and NS strategically located ... something's cooking ...

Time to ferret in Calgary ...