LNG: Canada’s Missed Opportunity? A Conversation with David Keane

He helped build the foundation of Canada’s LNG industry. Now he’s warning what happens if we don’t act.

In this episode of Power Struggle, Stewart Muir sits down with David Keane, former President of the BC LNG Alliance and Woodfibre LNG, to unpack the global rise of liquefied natural gas—and why Canada is falling behind.

With decades of experience in international energy, Keane offers a candid take on everything from Indigenous partnerships to emissions intensity, investor confidence, and the cost of political delay.

• What’s stopping Canada from becoming a global LNG player?
•  Why is U.S. gas dominating the market?
•  And what happens when our resources are sold at a discount—while the world still needs them?

If you care about responsible development, economic opportunity, and climate realism, don’t miss this one.

Subscribe to Power Struggle for more on the future of Canadian energy.

The energy conversation is polarizing. But the reality is multidimensional. Get the full story with host Stewart Muir.

Reach out to us with thoughts, questions, or ideas at info@powerstruggle.ca

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Chapters

• 0:00 Setting The LNG Stakes
• 0:41 Guest Intro And Career Scope
• 1:13 First Steps Into Canada And BG
• 2:19 Early Impressions Of British Columbia
• 2:54 From Army Pilot To Energy Policy
• 5:23 Policy Lessons And Social Performance
• 8:20 Founding The BC LNG Alliance
• 9:58 Why Woodfibre LNG: Nation And Power
• 12:06 Pushback, GHGs, And Global Context
• 14:08 Demystifying LNG Safety And Risks
• 17:02 Why BC: People, Resource, Proximity
• 19:25 Complexity, Scale, And Tax Policy
• 22:45 Market Access And Value Delta
• 24:33 Demand Growth, AI, And Hydrocarbons
• 27:00 Coal-To-Gas And Grid Balancing
• 28:18 U.S. Sprint, Policy Gaps, And Jobs
• 31:05 Innovation, Fracturing, And STEM
• 34:15 Site Visits, Trust, And Safety Culture
• 37:18 Ten-Year Vision For Canadian LNG
• 39:40 Active Listening And Community Demos
• 41:45 Closing Thanks And Reflections

Transcript

SPEAKER_02: 0:00

Demand for natural gas is growing. Even the Europeans have said the demand for natural gas is going to go well beyond 2050. So, you know, the demand's going to be there. It's not something that's going to go away. And I do believe in all of the above strategy. I do believe we need to have renewables. We need wind power. We need solar power. We also need nuclear power. But we also need natural gas power.

SPEAKER_01: 0:41

David served as president and CEO of the British Columbia LNG Alliance, where he championed BC's emerging LNG industry. And later he was president of Wood Fiber LNG, leading one of Canada's first LNG export projects from vision to reality. And it's getting very close to that final reality now, years later. David has since retired from those roles, but continues to advise and share his insight on the future of energy in BC and beyond. Welcome to the show, David Keane. Today I'm looking forward to hearing the story of you coming to Canada, what you did in Canada, what you did after, and the ideas you have or the perception you have of what the future holds. But I just wanted to go back to how you got to Canada. So what were you doing and when did you come to Canada?

SPEAKER_02: 1:31

Well, I I first came to uh Vancouver as it relates to LNG in 2011. And I was with uh BG Group, which used to be British Gas, uh, and I was vice president of policy and corporate affairs for their North America and Caribbean region, as well as the global LNG region. So that took me to Canada, the United States, Mexico, Bolivia, Venezuela, Chile, uh, Brazil, and Argentina. Of course, uh, Trinidad and Tobago. So that's what I was doing. BG Group saw all the possible opportunities that were available in developing an LNG export project in on the west coast of Canada, particularly in Prince Rupert. So we were looking at Ridley Island to develop a project, and that's initially what got me to Canada.

SPEAKER_01: 2:19

So 2011, you showed up in Vancouver, I suppose, wheels down here. Yes. What was your first impression of the place?

SPEAKER_02: 2:26

I thought it was absolutely stunning. I mean, just tremendously beautiful place. Uh, the mountains, the water, the temperature. I made a lot of really good friends. I could play golf year-round in Vancouver. Uh so it was just a beautiful, beautiful place. And the people were just tremendous. I made some really lifelong friends uh in Vancouver, in Terrace, in Prince Rupert, and Kidamat, uh, and other places around, and actually even Ottawa.

SPEAKER_01: 2:54

I'm just curious how you prepared you for your career. What did you study, and what were some of the milestones that kind of made you who you are as a professional?

SPEAKER_02: 3:05

I think if any of my teachers when I was in high school um saw me today, they'd be shocked. Um, so I I think it was uh an amazing opportunity that I had. And to end up where I am is just amazing. So I graduated from high school. I I came from a very poor family. Uh I couldn't afford to go to university. I didn't pay attention in school like I should have, so I couldn't get a scholarship. So my option, this is during the Vietnam War, my option was really to go in the military. And so I decided to go in the army. But I enlisted in the army for a specific purpose, which was to fly helicopters, which is what I did for almost 10 years from 1979. Then I got out, got my degree uh from Kansas State University. Uh, I had a master or a bachelor of science in business uh and graduated come law from from uh Kansas State. Um that then took me into the energy industry. I was hired by Coneco before it became Conoco Phillips, uh, spent quite a bit of time with Conoco. They they introduced me to natural gas and gas products, which are propane, butane, ethanes, of course, production part of it, as well as extracting the all the heavier hydrocarbons out of the methane stream. So I was involved in that. Then I went to work for a company called Natural Gas Clearinghouse, which ultimately became Dynogy, which was a huge natural gas marketing company, as well as a large liquids company. Uh actually, it was the largest liquids producer in the United States at one time. They bought Chevron's uh liquids business. So I got involved in that. And when I was with Dynogy, uh, they moved me to London. So I be uh became vice president and chief administrative officer for Dynogy Europe. And in that, I got heavily involved in European politics and European policymaking, which is really what got me interested in the policy sphere, because I learned quite quickly you can have good policy, you can have bad policy, or you can have neutral policy. Uh, and I think we'll talk about this in a little bit, but one of the things I saw in Canada was coming out was some bad policy. Policy that would have a negative impact on the development of a robust industry that could provide thousands of jobs to Canadians, as well as billions, if not trillions, of dollars over the long term of investment into the country. So I got heavily involved in that. Uh, and I also got involved in the social performance side of the of the of the space. And social performance is, you know, a lot of companies call it community investment or whatever. But I think social performance I think better defines what it is you're actually trying to do, which is engage with community, engage with indigenous communities as well. Uh look for ways in which you can actually make communities and indigenous communities better. So uh having robust conversations with them, which is something that I started doing. I did that in Bolivia for BG with indigenous people there. I learned a lot from uh the head of social performance for BG Group. Her name was Romani Kunanagam. She had a PhD in anthropology, very, very bright woman, and really helped me out a lot. And I remember when I first got to Canada, uh, she told me that I needed to visit with a fellow by the name of Jim Cooney. And this was in 2011. So just get to Canada. She says, you need to talk with Jim Cooney. I worked with him at the World Bank when I was there. He lives in Vancouver. Uh, he worked for dome mining. Uh, so he spent a lot of time overseas, a lot of time working with indigenous communities. Uh, and actually, he's the guy who's credited with creating the term social license. Um, and so I sat down with Jim and we were at the the Harbor Hotel down by the water, uh, across from the premier's office. And he said, you know, when you're when you're in Canada and you're dealing with indigenous people, you have to remember they've been here for 10,000 years. And your project's going to be here maybe 100 years. So put that in perspective when you're talking with them, because their view is much longer term than your view. Now, while you might think you're you're you have you take a long-term view in terms of revenues and investments, these people take a long-term view in terms of environment and how you're managing uh the ecology. So that's really how I got involved in in the social performance side of it and how I got to to actually where I am today, because after um BG Group, uh, when Shell bought them in 2013, they closed the deal in 2014, I decided to retire then. That was my first retirement. Right after I retired, I was approached by uh Chevron, Shell, and Petronos, Tessa Gill with Shell or with uh Petronos, Rod Meyer with Chevron, and of course Susanna Pierce with Shell or LNG Canada to see if I'd be interested in starting up the BC LNG Alliance, which was a group that was created and formed to represent the developing LNG industry in British Columbia. Because if you remember, Stuart, when you go back to 2014, 15, 16, there was like 20 to 22 proposed large LNG facilities that were, that were looking at serious investment. These are not, these weren't small companies. These were ExxonMobil, uh, they were Woodside, uh, among others. So some of the largest players in the world were looking at developing LNG an LNG industry in BC. So we created the LNG Alliance, and that's where I was until I went to Wood Fiber, um, and and that was in 2018. So uh, and I if you want me to, I'll talk a little bit about uh why I went to Wood Fiber. I had an opportunity um uh as I was president and CEO of the BC LNG Alliance. Uh I remember one day in in I think May or June of 2018, um my executive assistant, Grace Say, said, I just had a call from Ratnish Betty, who's the president of uh Pacific Oil and Gas at the time. Now it's Pacific Energy, asking if you'd have lunch. And I said, I wonder what he wants. I have no idea. They were members of the Alliance, so I was thinking, he obviously wants to talk about the alliance or something. So prepared for the meeting. We had lunch at the old U restaurant in what used to be the Four Seasons Hotel. And Ratnish then said, I want you to consider becoming president of Wood Fiber. And I said, Wow, that's tremendously flattering. Uh and I'd have to talk to my wife about it. And I did. And she said, Okay, you can do it, but you can only do it for two years because remember, you retired in 2014. Here we are in 2018. Uh, you're still working. And I said, Okay, um, I'll I'll I'll make sure that's in the contract, that it's only a two-year deal. A tremendous opportunity. And one of the reasons why, or actually two reasons, why I decided to go to Wood Fiber was the work that was done with the Squamish Nation. Uh, I think that was truly groundbreaking. And I didn't do any of the heavy lifting. All the heavy lifting was done by Bing Jiro, um, Marion DeGo, and Ali Mears. They did all the work in in terms of getting the Squamish Nation to agree to be a regulator of the project. Now, to my knowledge, that's never been done before and hasn't been done since, where you actually have an indigenous community who is on par with the provincial and federal commun uh uh governments in terms of being a regulator. So that was one, it was groundbreaking. Number two was the fact that this was an all-electric facility getting its power from BC Hydro. So the majority of 90 plus 92, 93% of the power at the time that we were looking at it coming into the facility was renewable. So it would be the lowest emitting LNG project anywhere on the planet by a long margin. So that were there, those were the two reasons why I really wanted to go to wood fiber. And and we did an awful lot. There was a tremendous amount of work, but in it's great to see that it's developing. It's great to see where it is today. Uh, I think Ratnish and his team have done just an outstanding amount of work.

SPEAKER_01: 11:21

Aaron Powell Well, you went from being the equivalent of a backroom political strategist to running for mayor. Yes. That was kind of an unusual thing. But late in your career, you had a lot of experience, a lot of things you'd seen. What was surprising about what you discovered? Because you said yes to that job.

SPEAKER_02: 11:37

What was surprising was still the amount of pushback uh in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. Correct. Uh nothing with regards to pushback from the Squamish Nation. Uh, but we had tremendous support from Chief Ian Campbell, from Chief Bill Williams, who unfortunately has passed away just recently. Um so we had tremendous support from the First Nation, uh, but it was it was uh surprising the amount of pushback we had from the Squamish government. And I said I I would agree with you in terms of reducing greenhouse gas emissions if we lived in a in a bubble and that we shouldn't be producing anything here if we lived if we had this big dome over uh British Columbia. I I could understand that, but we don't. And LNG or natural gas demand is gonna be met. So it's either gonna be met by uh jurisdictions like Canada, British Columbia, that are actively and actually proactively working to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, or it's gonna be met by Russia, Iran, the Middle East, other kind uh places where they don't really care about greenhouse gas emissions. So the demand's gonna be met. So wouldn't you prefer that we reduce global uh greenhouse gas emissions versus just a spot of greenhouse gas emissions in Squamish? And for some reason, uh we just couldn't get that uh that across. Uh because I think you know, if you look at the where the project site is located, it's compl I mean it's well away from the the Squamish community. The only way you can get to it is by boat. Um and so it's isolated, it's doing everything it can to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, it's doing everything it can to work and be a very good partner with the Swamish Nation. Um so I I think that was a that was a little bit of a surprise for me.

SPEAKER_01: 13:28

Yeah, well, they that community has been interesting. And what I think about power struggle and the challenges of getting the energy the way people want it. They want it to be affordable, it's gotta be there when you need it, so it's got to be reliable, and it has to perform the way society wants, whether that's environmental or in other measures. And if you can get all those three, you're you're golden. And LNG checks those boxes, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_02: 13:53

It does. But but I think that I go back to some of the apprehension that people have. I mean, uh and it and it's understandable because people are not familiar with the product, so they're not they're not familiar with is it explosive, is it, is it gonna uh cause uh property damage? Is it is it gonna hurt people? Is it gonna hurt the environment? What about ships and whales? Uh are they gonna be impacted? Other marine life? So there's a uh because the industry was new, um people didn't understand and weren't really informed about what LNG is and what LNG does. Uh, you know, one of the things that I think is important today going forward as companies look to develop more projects in British Columbia is to make sure that you're engaging with the communities long before, long before you ever decide that you're going to put a plant in their in their jurisdiction. So make sure you're they understand what you're doing. And then educate people about what LNG is and what LNG isn't. One of the things we've done when I was working with Next Decade in the Rio Grande LNG project in the port of Brownsville, Texas, was we we brought in experts to actually do live LNG demos so that people could see what LNG is. They could see that LNG is not toxic, LNG is not corrosive, LNG is not explosive, LNG as a liquid is not flammable, and people go, but not flammable. And actually, uh Shell used to show that on their uh uh on their website, an LNG demonstration of somebody actually putting a cigarette out in LNG. It's not the terrible product that people think. Now, I want to say the vapors are flammable. So the vapors are flammable, but the liquid itself is not. And the fact that it's not explosive, so it's not stored under pressure, only maybe one or two pounds above atmosphere. So the ships transiting house sound or or wherever are not transiting uh with propane or butane that's stored under high pressure, so there's no pressure. The tanks at the site are not under pressure, so it's not explosive, it's not going to explode and and destroy half the universe. That that's just uh that's not true. And and I think making sure you get out early and often in in the community to to actually discuss with them what the the real properties are and then listen to them. I think one of the things, as I mentioned Jim Coon Cooney earlier, was uh to make sure you're engaging with First Nations before you ever decide where you're gonna put something. Uh now you may have got early plans or whatever, but it's important to sit down with the chief of the nations to say, here's what we're thinking. What are your thoughts? And then once you hear what their thoughts are, you can say either you you can't accommodate those concerns or you can. And if you can, then here's how we plan to accommodate them. If you can't, you can be honest with people and say, look, that just doesn't work, we can't do it. And nine out of ten times, people will say, okay, I understand that, and and we'll accept it. Uh so, but the most important thing is to is to go out and listen to what the communities are saying. Listen to what the First Nations are saying. And I mean active listening, not just sitting there ticking a uh regulatory box. It's it's really engaging and showing you you are concerned about them as people.

SPEAKER_01: 17:16

Right now, I would just state it, it's a well-known fact that the number one LNG, which stands, I don't think we've said it, so liquefied natural gas. That's when you cool natural gas to be like a tiny fraction of its volume when it's a gas to be this super cold minus 160 degrees Celsius, uh, and then you can literally pour it like it's it is a liquid. Yeah. Liquefied natural gas. So the the promise of British Columbia, you said there's 22 projects on the slate that people are talking about in BC. You've just left Texas, which no one knew, but it was destined to be what we know it is now. That is to say, the number one LNG exporter in the whole world, more than anywhere in the Middle East or places in Africa or Australia that were early entrants. That was happening, but you left Texas behind at Texas and Louisiana, where it was happening. Um so you show up and you become I I'd like to call you the godfather of the Canadian LNG industry because the things you worked on when you were the head of the BC LNG Alliance were what set the rules for this whole new industry. Never had it before. There was one place on the Fraser River in Vancouver where they did and still do produce a you know small amount of LNG for um what's known as peaking, right? For when it's uh winter, they've got that extra, but not not really yet for export, although one day hopefully they will. They're using it for marine bunkering right now, which is uh another story. Let's avoid that rabbit hole. As fascinating a one as it is, but um you came to BC. There was there was lots of something, though, but there was no LNG terminals uh on the coast. So you show up here. Um why would you come to a place like BC that thought it should have a natural gas industry rather than around Texas, where you could have maybe stayed and had a great career? Well, I did have a great career.

SPEAKER_02: 19:12

I certainly did. Coming to Vancouver. Um The reason why I wanted to do it was number one, the people. I I I found there's a high quality of labor available in British Columbia and Canada as a whole. Uh I found the the resource, natural gas resource in Canada is about 1.4 trillion cubic feet. So over 200 years of available supply and current consumption. So think about that. It's a huge supply base, great people, great uh labor uh that's available and ready and willing to work, and the proximity to the big Asian markets. So if you look at the Gulf Coast, you're about two weeks shorter time distance from British Columbia to the Asian markets versus coming out of the Gulf Coast. You're about seven days closer than uh, or eight days closer than just coming out of uh northern Mexico on the on the West Coast. I think three big reasons why this was important. And a fourth one would be the enthusiasm and support of the provincial government. Uh Christy Clark was the premier at the time. She was just outstanding. I can't say enough good things about Christy and how much she supported the industry. Uh she was a great salesperson, she was a great cheerleader for British Columbia, and actually for all of Canada. She was somebody that that would go on these international trips, and I would often go with her. And it was amazing to see how she was in promoting Canada, promoting British Columbia, and promoting the LNG industry. So there was a, I think, some good reasons to leave Texas to come to British Columbia, specifically Vancouver, to look at developing a robust export industry out of BC. And I do want to say, in terms of labor, I had developed a very close relationship with Tom Sigurdson, who was the head of the BC Building Trades, and then Brynn Burke, who's the head of the the building trades today. I've got nothing but praise to say for that group. Uh they've got the people that are ready and willing to work.

SPEAKER_01: 21:15

They got her built. You arrived in those years. Here's a place where the Premier won an election with LNG on the side of a bus touring around. She got a popular mandate, a very strong one, and clearly there was strong support for that. And you were already on the scene then, so you have a government that comes in, but there's a few things missing when you're getting into the saddle at the BCL and G Alliance. There's no tax regime, there's there's no uh settlement over what to do with some of the import rules at a federal level. So you were back and forth to Ottawa, I recall in those years a lot, and you had to go to Victoria and you had to set up something with the finance department that never existed before. And it must be fun arguing with uh finance officials. Um it was it was very interesting.

SPEAKER_02: 22:10

I think that you know um there was so much enthusiasm for the development of the LNG industry at the time in British Columbia. Um and enthusiasm, having a lot of enthusiasm is never a bad thing. Uh, but again, I think making sure that you're aware of what it takes to actually develop an industry like this is important. Um so there was no LNG other than, as you mentioned, a small um plant that's for peak shaming that's run by Fortas. Um so that was really the only thing that was here. So nobody really knew anything about developing a world-scale LNG export project and how you do uh look at the markets and whatever. So I think people were thinking, and and it's it's not this is not negative. This is uh, you know, you put it in your own frame of reference in terms of what it is when you say, well, this is a major construction project. Well, what does a major construction project mean to Stuart Muir versus to David Keene? A major construction project could be one of the sky uh uh the towers in in downtown BC, uh Vancouver. It could be a uh a small steel plant, uh could be something like that. When you look at one of these major projects like LNG Canada or what I was just recently involved with Rio Grande LNG in Brownsville, these are massive undertakings. So they're the complexity that's involved, I don't think people understood the complexity. Um, and it's not from an engineering perspective. And I'll I'll I'll say there are some engineering complexities when you're talking about the pipelines going across the mountain ranges. There's some pinch points that you have to be able to get through. But for an LG plan, the technology's there. It's it's it is improved almost annually, if not semi-annually. So the the complexity of that is is not significant, but it's bringing all the component parts together at the same time. So you've got to get uh your site selected, you've got to get your customers, you've got to get your financing, you've got to get through the regulatory and political process, you've got to get your community on board, and all this has to come together simultaneously for you to have a positive final investment decision. And I don't think people really understood the complexities of all of this, because you're talking about not just a massive capital investment. I mean, you're people were talking about 20 or 30 or 40 or 100 million dollar investment. Well, we're we talking billions. So we're talking about 20, 40, 60 billion dollar investments. And I think that if you look at a report that was uh published by the Conference Board of Canada not too long ago, they're talking about from 2020 to 2064 for 56 million ton export uh projects. So that would be maybe two, three uh large LNC LNG export projects, including LNG Canada. So you're pretty much almost with phase two of LNG Canada there, that would represent uh uh about a$500 billion investment in British Columbia over that period of time, with around 96,000 jobs annually created for for Canada, as well as about 71,000 jobs annually created just for BC. So I don't think people really understood the the complexity of putting all of this together and then the the logistics required around getting everything done. So the you know one of the one of the issues that came up to the LNG industry quite early uh was the notion of an LNG income tax. Well, the industry hadn't even had an FID yet. Um and we were notified that we're gonna the government was gonna create this LNG income tax of about I don't remember exactly, I think it was around 3%. So it's it's like, well, wait a minute, we haven't done anything. So you're already talking about taxing us. And that was that was a concern that was, I I think, I don't think the government realized how concerning that was to the major players. Uh, because it was, well, they're gonna tax us before we even get started. What are they gonna do after we get uh steel in the ground and we can't move it? What's gonna happen then? So there was a a strong concern about how this was going to take shape. Needless to say, we worked very closely with with the BC government on crafting what the LNG income tax would look like. And and I think we had uh, well, we had Steve Carr, who was the deputy minister at the time, who was very supportive of the industry, and he was followed by Dave Nicolajie, who was again very supportive, and very those two men were very easy to work with. They might not agree with you all the time, but we all actually became friends and uh could have a conversation where you could disagree and still be friends and still have a beer after work. So that and that helped a lot too. I think it the the notion of developing these personal relationships, whether it's in Ottawa, uh uh very good relationships with senior government people in Ottawa in the Trudeau uh period. So, and that helped a lot too, because you could talk to them. We uh the the government, the federal government came out with the uh tariff on fabricated industrial steel components, which was a significant, would have it had a significant impact on wood fiber, uh uh in the not just 10 million, about$100 million worth of impact. So getting that removed was extremely important. And we got push we got pushback from the government in Ottawa, but we I went there, as you mentioned, quite often. I was probably going there once a week and sitting down with finance, sitting down with the finance minister at the time, and ultimately we got them to agree that we can give you a waiver on the an exemption on the fabricated industrial steel components tax, which is important. And that was another one that helped us get to a point where wood fiber could have a final investment decision.

SPEAKER_01: 28:04

You think about the benefits from LNG. You've talked about the jobs, the investment, you talk about the revenues that could flow to government if you get that right. One thing I'd like to hear you on, David, is the value of those gas molecules. So they exist in what the industry calls the upstream places like the Montany Shale and Northeast BC and in Alberta. And right now, all that gas that isn't used in Canada goes south to our friends in the United States. And can you talk about uh what the the value proposition is here? What is the delta between what we get as Canada when we sell that to the United States with what we could get if we get it to a global market?

SPEAKER_02: 28:48

That's something that we were saying back in 2011, 2012. You're tied to one market today, one export market, and you're a price taker. So whatever the US government says or US market says, this is what we're gonna pay, you have to take it. And actually, not too long ago, I think a few months ago, the price was free or actually negative. So you had to pay somebody to take your gas if you were gonna produce it. So that and that doesn't make any sense. So I think saying we want to diversify our markets is extremely important. Um, and I'll I'll kind of diverge just a bit here, Stuart, because when you look at um the BCLNG alliance and the industry and looking at the market, so you have uh you'll be selling it, say, around instead of taking uh a negative price for it or a price of 50 cents per MMBTU, million British thermal units, you'll be able to sell it for 10, 12, 13, 15 dollars per mmBTU to the Asian markets. So when you think about one of these ships, these ships hold about three to three point five billion cubic feet of gas. So you're talking about 40 or 50 million dollars of value on each ship as it leaves. And if you're A big LNG export project itself, you're probably one or two ships a day. So that's a lot of revenue coming back into Canada. So it's not just going to the resource owners or the operators of the LNG plants. The balance of payments accrues to the Canadian government, which I think is extremely important. And think about where Canada would be if Goldboro and Bearhead on the East Coast had been allowed to switch from import facilities to export facilities, and where they would be today if they were selling 10, 15, 20 million tons of LNG to the European market. I mean, it'd be much cheaper than going from the U.S.

SPEAKER_01: 30:43

Gulf Coast. Segues into the global picture, you know, wars, what's happened in Europe uh since the time that you got started with the wood fiber LNG, supply shocks that we've seen, growth in demand. Who expected AI to come out of nowhere? Now there's, I think, over 300 major AI or data center projects in the U.S. that are they're gonna consume an enormous amount of energy. It's got to come from somewhere. And here's here's uh Canada in this picture. What's a you know, Canadian worldview on all of that?

SPEAKER_02: 31:15

I think that's exactly right. Demand for natural gas is growing. Uh even the Europeans have said the demand for natural gas is gonna go well beyond 2050. So uh, you know, the demand's gonna be there. It's it's not something that's gonna go away. And I do believe in in all of the above strategy, I do believe we need to have renewables. We need wind power, we need solar power, we also need nuclear power, um, but we also need natural gas power. So uh to think that hydrocarbons are gonna go away is I think a bit naive. And you start thinking about everything that hydrocarbons are used in. So if hydrocarbons are going to go away, as some people would like, I mean, I don't know where your laptop's gonna come from, I don't know where your cell phone is gonna come from, um, your coffee cups, your cars, even if they're electric cars, they still require hydrocarbons to get built. People need to think about all of this that hydrocarbons are involved in. So to simply say we want to get rid of hydrocarbons doesn't make a lot of sense. Uh I'm hopeful that through information, the campaigns, that people will come to realize that hydrocarbons are not the bad thing out there. They provide a lot of value. And you start thinking about energy poverty and and what this means for places like India where that where they're still burning wood or dung. Well, look at the greenhouse gas emissions associated with all of that. If you can replace that with natural gas fire power generation, you reduce emissions tremendously. And you get people that that are today trying to learn or read by candlelight or firelight to be able to have electric power lighted. So I think there's a billion people uh or so today on this planet that are still in energy poverty. That that's a significant slice of the entire uh of the entire world. Look at what China's done, and I'm not trying to support China, but what they've done in terms of taking people out of abject poverty, I think it's five or six hundred million people that were taken out of abject poverty because of the ability to have energy. So energy is important, renewables, wind power is important, uh, solar power is important, nuclear is important, and but so are hydrocarbons and natural gas.

SPEAKER_01: 33:31

Now, the United States is the biggest energy user in the world. It has been for a long time. It probably will continue to be. Maybe China will be above it, or maybe they're close, but um it went through a major energy transition in recent years that had to do with coal. And you saw that up close. Uh, could you tell me about that?

SPEAKER_02: 33:54

Well, I think uh what China was trying to do or is trying to do is they're trying to wean themselves off coal. Now that's gonna still take quite some time to do it. You think about the Chinese, it's 1.2 billion people, it's got a massive uh geo geography. Um and a few years ago it was said that they're gonna have to build a whole new electric system the size of the US electric system, just to meet growing demand. So think about that's a huge amount of investment that has to come into the country. But it's also gonna require a lot of all of the above. So it does mean coal is going to be part of this picture. But I think that what they would like to do in terms of reducing greenhouse gas emissions is replace a lot of this, a lot of the coal with natural gas. The good thing about natural gas power generation is while it has 50% lower greenhouse gas emissions, it also can be instantaneous. So you can turn it on, whereas a coal plant, you if you shut it down, it takes a long time to turn it back on. So natural gas is a great um uh provides a great opportunity to balance their electrical systems.

SPEAKER_01: 35:02

Now you look back to the time there were 22 proposals on the West Coast. I'm pretty sure that no one thought all 22 would get built. I never heard anyone say that, but they were lined up. Everyone knew it would filter down to the ones that were viable, and that's basically what's happened. But meanwhile, in the Gulf Coast of the U.S., uh Texas and Louisiana, you've had this proliferation. Is it eight or I uh I saw just another LNG plant was coming on this week. So maybe it's nine, you'll know the number. But um the U.S. is built. Well, we were, as some people have said, uh you know, tying our shoelaces, they were sprinting down the track. And now look at uh the the wealth. How much wealth has doing that, which Canada could have done in the same years, created for the U.S. What benefits have flowed to American people because of what's happened there?

SPEAKER_02: 35:51

I don't know exact the exact number in terms of wealth generated by all these LNG projects. But as you pointed out earlier, uh it is uh it's amazing to see what has been done since 2016 in nine years. Uh LNG going from or the US going from a very small exporter, which was primarily out of the Kenai plant in Alaska to Japan, uh, to where it is today, the world's largest exporter of LNG. Uh, and it will be for quite some time. And there's more projects proposed and planned to come on stream. So I I I think what happened was the benefits that have crewed to communities. Look at all the investment going into the communities, jobs, the amount of jobs that are that are being required. If I look at my the the company from which I just retired from next decade, uh Rio Grande LNG today has about 4,700 people working on site. And that's going to grow to about 5,000 at peak. But that's going to be over a period of time, too. So the amount of investment going into South Texas is absolutely enormous. I mean, this is a uh$25 or so billion dollar investment. Think to the local communities, uh, and it means a lot to the government who's getting the taxes on these projects. You know, we've been criticized. I think uh LNG projects get criticized because they get tax abatements. One of the problems in Canada versus the US, US states are willing to get tax abatement agreements uh to get to allow you not to have to pay taxes for a certain period of time until an investment's met. Whereas in Canada, you don't get that. So, you know, that's a policy issue right there that creates a significant disparity between should I invest here or should I invest there? And I think that's important. And it goes back to what I said a little earlier that you have good policy, bad policy, or neutral policy. Well, I think creating bad policy and saying I'm not gonna listen really to the oil and gas industry because I think they're terrible. So I'm just gonna say, you guys have to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. I'm gonna impose a carbon tax on you, and you're gonna either like it or sh or you're gonna shut down. And and really that kind of policy, I think, comes from I'm gonna listen to this group of people, but I'm not gonna listen to that group of people. So you're listening to the opposition to the development of a robust industry. I mean, you look at the Canadian oil sands, they've reduced greenhouse gas emissions, I think, about by about 35 to 36 percent uh since 2000. That's amazing. I mean, that's a that's a tremendous amount of work. You look at hydraulic fracturing, which is like a four-letter word. And I tell people, quit call it fract, quit calling it fracking, call it hydraulic fracture. It's what it is. When people would tell me, well, that's you know, hydraulic fracturing is is is not good. I mean, it creates a lot of problems for water supply and for greenhouse gas emissions, etc. Um, I say, well, have you gone out to take a look at a hydraulic fracturing operation? And most people say, well, I actually all people say, no, I haven't seen it. Well, my my response is you need to go out and see it. You need to go out and take a look at what I what a hydraulic fracturing operation is. It's not a bunch of cowboys punching a hole in the ground, hoping they hit shale rock and produce natural gas. They're these guys are highly trained technicians that know exactly how far below the surface of the earth the drill bit is going. Then they go sideways for up to like seven or eight, nine miles today, and they know exactly how far the fractures are extending. So they know exactly what they're doing. This isn't this is high-tech stuff. And when I talk to young people, say you want to get into an innovative industry, go into the oil and gas industry, look at where we are today. Stuart, you'll recall back in uh around the night mid-1990s, we were at peak oil. We were gonna run out of natural gas, we're gonna run out of oil, and then all of a sudden, where are we today? Well, what happened? What happened was you had a guy by the name of George Mitchell in the Woodlands, Texas, that was able to figure out how to combine horizontal drilling with hydraulic fracturing. Hydraulic fracturing has been around since 1948. So hydraulic fracturing is not new. Almost every well in the world had some sort of hydraulic fracturing in order to produce the gas or oil. Today, what's different is you've got the economics work because you can go sideways for, like I said, seven, eight, nine miles, and you can extract the natural gas out of rock, which is absolutely amazing. So look at the innovative part of this industry. I I think this is like putting a man on the moon. When I was with BG Group, we were heavily involved in offshore Brazil, about 200 kilometers offshore Brazil, drilling in 10,000 feet of water, drilling down another 10,000 feet below the ocean floor. That's like putting a person on the moon when you start talking about pressures. So I think getting kids to be excited about this is important. And I think schools need to do a better job of that. You know, they need to say, okay, this is hydrocarbons aren't going away anytime soon. We need to prepare our kids for a world in which hydrocarbons are still going to be around. And we need to make sure that we're trying to find ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, to improve the environment, to make sure we're operating in a safe manner with marine life, et cetera. So let's get kids trained and educated. Let's educate the teachers. I remember back in 2013, I guess it was, or 14, uh, one of our member companies in the BC LNG Alliance uh wanted to donate computers to a Vancouver school district. And they refused to take it because it was an oil company. And I'm going, I'm scratching my head. This company, now, if it was Apple, they'd take the computers. But if because it's an energy company, they refuse them. I'm going, why would you do that? Why? Because you have a prejudice or a bias against the oil and gas industry. And that's because you don't understand the oil and gas industry. Now I remember, and I'm probably going sideways on this question, but I remember when I was in a position uh after I first took over the BCR or started the BCL and G Alliance, I was fortunate to be able to get Jazz Johal as our head of communications. Jazz had just left Global TV, and and Jazz was outstanding. And he he said to me after a month, he said, you know, you guys in this industry do a great job of talking to yourselves, but you do a terrible job of talking to people. And that's true. The industry itself is because uh as as uh I think you've seen, um in corporate speaking, you have to be very careful because you have to be concerned about stock prices and the SEC and how is this going to impact certain things. You know, if I say the wrong thing publicly, that could tank the stock price. So people are very concerned about that. But we still have to find a way in which we can go out and educate people about what hydrocarbons are, what they're not. Same thing with LNG. What is LNG? What is LNG not? And I think educating people to do this and getting kids to get into STEM programs is really, really important.

SPEAKER_01: 43:03

Do you think the act of going out to see some of these sites? You you mentioned that pretty much no one ever gets out to a fracking site, to a drilling site where hydraulic fracturing is used. I've had the privilege of going to see it myself. So I know what you're saying. You have that experience, you see it up close, you can ask questions, you can hold those little balls that go down in there and close off the end of the tube. It's it's unbelievable technology. Um do you think that would be a good way to, if we could do it at scale, maybe?

SPEAKER_02: 43:32

And some of it can be done through video, through AI today. I think there's five probably inexpensive ways in which you can do this rather than taking thousands of people out to a hydraulic fracturing site. Uh one of the things that I think is important, and I show I think it shows when you when people can actually see things. I remember when we were with uh BG and we were just getting started in Prince Rupert. Um, and I I had the opportunity to meet with Chief Harold Leighton, who was the chief of the MetLacadla, and Mayor Gary Reese, who at the time was mayor of the L'Aqualams community and is still the mayor of L'Aqualam's. Um and I said, Look, would you guys and your counselors be interested in traveling with me to visit an active LNG export facility? And they said, sure, we we'd like to see that. So I said, okay, well, we'll go to Trinidad and Tobago uh in the Caribbean and show you Atlantic LNG. We we took the chiefs uh and the mayor and and their counselors down to Trinidad, and we had an opportunity to spend a full day at Atlantic LNG. And they could ask any question they wanted. They were they were not restricted in any way of asking any questions. And at the end of the day, uh, two things came out of that that trip. One was one of the counselors for the L'Aqualams said to the president of Atlantic LNG, said, I'm really impressed with the safety culture. The fact that people are really, it's not just a phrase, it's not something you just throw out and toss around. People are really focused on safety. And that's important because people want to make sure that your family member, if they're working in an LNG facility, that they're able to come home at the end of the day in the same condition as they were when they got there. That's important. The second thing was uh this this guy asked the the president, how many people here are local? Because he was thinking, well, this is there's they're all expats running this facility. And the president said about 99.5% are local, are Trinidadian. And keep in mind that before Atlantic LNG was ever built, there were no LNG facilities in Trinidad Tobago, much like what we were talking about in Prince Rubber. So did they start it up with some expats? Absolutely. And they were there to train their replacements to take over because you don't want to have an army of expats because it's very expensive when you should have local people doing the operations. So that was there were two things that they came away from. And and I'll never forget one of the counselors leaning over to Mayor Reese saying, you know, we should just approve this right now on the bus going back to the hotel in Port of Spain. And I told Gary, I said, Yeah, we should approve this right now. And and Gary and I have been friends ever since. And so I I think uh doing that, number one, gives you time with people. And number two, they get to see an actual facility and realize it's it's not as dangerous or it's not this this nefarious thing that you're talking about. It's real steel on the ground with real people with real jobs. And in Trinidad, there's about 700 people working in Atlantic. So I think those are things you need to do. And again, finding ways in which the oil and gas industry, like CAP, does a great job of trying to get out and educate people and inform people about what the oil and gas industry is. I think every company needs to be doing that in their communities. Every company needs to take an opportunity to do this. I think you need to start with some of the schools as well, senior management in the school districts, so that they can see you can take them out and then they can spread the word to the teachers so that the teachers aren't just saying, well, this is the this is a dirty industry and you don't want to go into it. That's not true. This is, again, one of the most innovative technical industries that I've ever seen. They're in my view, they're right up there with SpaceX and NASA and other uh organizations like that.

SPEAKER_01: 47:24

You've got a playbook. Thank you for sharing that, and a call to action. Thank you also for that, David. Um, I think it's almost time to wrap up. I feel like we could spend actually a few hours in this conversation because there's a bunch of things we've been talking about that I I'd love to delve into more, but this won't be that time. I hope there will be a time in the future. But I would like to maybe come to a conclusion of this great conversation today by asking you what you hope or predict the 10-year horizon looks like in Canada, the West Coast, maybe the East Coast too, maybe other coasts. What do you think the future is or could be if we get everything right for Canada in in this industry that you know so well from your whole career?

SPEAKER_02: 48:08

Well, I think, uh, like the conference board said, I I I don't think 56 million tons uh of export capability is out of the out of the realm of reality. I think you could have 70 tons of LNG export facilities. I think there's room on the West Coast to do this. I think there's room on the East Coast. Uh again, uh if you think about where Canada wants to be and the revenues that will accrue to Canada uh as of developing this, where you know, one of the things I always mentioned when I was talking with politicians was if you don't want the resource industry, whether it's mining, oil and gas, lumber, whatever, who's gonna pay the bills? Who's paving the roads? Who's paying the hospitals? Who's paying the teachers? Where's all this great stuff that we that we really enjoy in Canada? Where's it coming from? So somebody's got to be doing this. Now we do have to do it right. The industry needs to make sure if you have bad actors, you need to get rid of them. You need to throw them out. And the government, if they find bad actors, needs to shut them down. But I can say I've never heard in my 45 years in the oil and gas industry, I've never heard anyone say, hey, I want to produce more greenhouse gas emissions. Hey, I want to destroy the environment. They don't want to do that. They have families as well. They want to make sure that their families are taken care of. They want to make sure that they that they have clean air to breathe and that they have clean water to swim in and or fish in, and that they want to make sure they protect the wildlife and animals and also the marine life. So I think there's there's a lot to be done. There's a lot still to do. We, and it's it's really sort of a all of the above approach to how we engage with communities. And I think that's again, going back to what I said earlier, it's active listening. Active listening. So you're concerned about hydraulic fracturing. Well, let me take up and show you what a hydraulic fracturing site looks like. And or I'm concerned about LNG. Well, let me let me bring in an LNG expert, third party, completely outside your the company, that will demonstrate LNG. What is LNG? What isn't LNG? We did that with before was kind enough to supply us with LNG, and they had a person that was doing the demos. And I mean, when people actually see and kids get up and see that it floats, it doesn't, it doesn't sit on water, it's not flammable, it's not explosive, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. They become excited about this. This is it's a science project. It's really quite interesting. And and kids love doing that. So my call to action again is for companies to take a more proactive role in their communities and get out and actually not just engage with low-level people in the communities, but get out with the senior leadership of the communities, get out with the senior educators in the community so you can educate people and get kids on board because this is a tremendous industry. It's an exciting industry and it's going to be around for a long time.

SPEAKER_01: 50:58

Well, David, I do hope this is not the last conversation we have about LNG, and I do hope it's not too long until we see you again in Canada, whether you're coming up for uh holiday or or maybe you'll get pulled back into the industry. It can be very hard to leave when someone's got your level of expertise, even if you're trying to retire again. Um thanks for coming on. I've been really hoping for years, actually, ever since I first knew you, because I knew you were building this whole structure for a new industry, would never had to come into existence. You did that, and then you surprised everyone by showing it. Suddenly you're the the CEO of of an actual LNG. You were actually doing it, not just you know, talking about it. Not many people have that in a career, but you did. And um and thank you from hey, everyone here in Canada for what you brought about, because you are building a future. It's a cleaner future, it's a more prosperous future, it's bringing security not just to Canada, but we know that countries that are investing in Canadian LNG are getting more security for them, whether that's in Western Europe or in Asia. So thank you for those gifts to to Canada. Stuart, thank you very much. Pleasure to be here.