Natural gas glut could hamper new Canaport LNG terminal in Saint John: expert

A liquefied natural gas industry expert from Houston says the new Canaport LNG terminal in Saint John may not be as busy as anticipated when the project began.

Construction is nearly finished at Canaport LNG's onshore facilities in Saint John, and Repsol Energy Canada is expecting its first commissioning tanker to arrive by the end of next month.

Barbara Shook, the Houston bureau chief for the Energy Intelligence Group, a research organization that covers the oil and gas industry, said recent large-scale discoveries of shale natural gas deposits in Canada and the United States have lessened the need for imported liquefied natural gas.

Shook said that could affect the number of LNG tankers coming to Saint John.

"They couldn't be operating at a worse time. Instead of being short natural gas, North America is in another glut," Shook said.

"Places that never knew they could be natural gas producing regions are full of natural gas, including Atlantic Canada."

Shook said when construction started at Canaport nearly five years ago, there was a great need for natural gas receiving terminals.

She said before the shale gas discoveries, no one dreamed companies would be looking at upstate New York, Ontario and Quebec as potential major natural gas-producing areas.