The Oil Drum

LNG beats pipeline

Treating delta gas as an LNG opportunity is much more attractive than the Mackenzie pipeline option. Maybe the big giants behind the backers -- Exxon Mobil, Conoco Phillips, and Royal Dutch Shell -- fear upsetting their global petroleum, natural gas and LNG apple carts by allowing their Canadian subsidiaries to start playing for the first time outside their Canadian sand boxes. It may be an intolerable horror for these multi-nationals to see delta LNG "washing up" at global LNG terminals, and competing with their own non-Canadian LNG delivered to U.S. and overseas LNG-terminals. Or might marketing delta gas globally snatch away the currently dominant fuel, gas, from the ravenous appetites of oilsands gas-guzzlers, forcing them to consider fuel options other than gas, and risking further delays, because they are also primary holders of Alberta oilsands leases.