A British Columbia company has cancelled plans to build an oil refinery on the province’s north coast that would have processed northern Alberta oil for export to Asian markets.
Announced
in 2014, the Pacific Future Energy refinery project was billed as the “world’s greenest refinery,” with a commitment to operate as a near-net-zero carbon emission refinery and reduce spill risks by shipping refined products instead of heavy oil.
The project, which would have refined
roughly 200,000 barrels of bitumen per day, had been
undergoing environmental assessment since 2016. But in an
email in December, Pacific Future Energy’s chief executive officer Samer Salameh notified the government that the company would not proceed with the project.
“We hereby terminate our application,” Salameh wrote in a Dec. 3, 2024, email, without providing a reason for the decision.
Federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault, in a Feb. 11
letter to Salameh, responded that the company’s environmental assessment had been terminated.
Salameh confirmed the project’s termination in a series of emails with the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada, which in July 2024 notified the company of amendments to the Impact Assessment Act and their implications for the Pacific Future Energy Refinery Project.
The Impact Assessment Act, previously known as Bill C-69, introduced federal environmental requirements for major projects such as pipelines. It received
royal assent in 2019. The legislation was
ruled by the Supreme Court of Canada in 2023 to be infringing on provincial jurisdiction after a challenge by Alberta, and the federal government last year amended it in response.
In an Aug. 29, 2024, email, Salameh notified the agency that the project had been “suspended for now,” but gave no further details. The company planned to build the refinery on an industrial site known as Dubose Flats, about 30 kilometres north of Kitimat, B.C.
The Epoch Times reached out to Salameh for comment, but did not hear back by publication time.
The project, designed for an estimated operational lifespan of 60 years and a capacity to store nearly 900,000 cubic meters of petroleum, included construction of a 7-track railway yard spanning almost 21 kilometres.
The company had added former Conservative cabinet minister and former leader of the Opposition Stockwell Day to its board of directors.
Guilbeault said in the letter to Salameh that if the company were to revisit its plans in the future, it would have to submit an initial project description to the federal agency in accordance with the amended Impact Assessment Act.
Previous plans to transport oil from Alberta to Kitimat stalled after the federal government
officially rejected the Northern Gateway pipeline in 2016, citing environmental and indigenous concerns. The decision followed Ottawa’s ban on oil tanker traffic off British Columbia’s north coast, effectively blocking the export of Alberta oil to international markets from that coast.
Calls to revive the pipeline have emerged in recent months following warnings of U.S. tariffs. President Donald Trump has threatened to impose 25 percent tariffs on all goods from Canada, with a reduced levy of 10 percent on energy, citing concerns about border security and illegal drugs.
Impact Assessment Act
The Impact Assessment Act’s stated
purpose is to “foster sustainability” and protect the environment from “adverse” effects from any major project. Guilbeault
has said the legislation provides assessment of projects in a timely manner, while ensuring they do not affect the ecosystem or indigenous rights.
The Alberta government has been critical of the assessment act, saying it places unnecessary burden on projects. In September 2019, the province challenged the law’s constitutionality in court, saying it infringes on provincial jurisdiction.
Then-Alberta Premier Jason Kenney dubbed it the “No More Pipelines Act,” due to the regulatory burden the province said the legislation created.
In October 2023, the Supreme Court of Canada
ruled that the act was “largely unconstitutional,” prompting the federal government to amend the legislation,
effective June 20, 2024.
Ottawa
said its
amendments to the act responded “meaningfully” to the Supreme Court’s decision, addressing decision-making on areas “of clear federal jurisdiction,” and enhancing “flexibility to cooperate with other jurisdictions in support of cooperative federalism.”
