This story is part of The Energy Mix’s partnership with Small Change Fund.

Author: The Energy Mix staff

TGEGASENGINEERING/Wikimedia Commons

A new joint venture with majority Indigenous ownership has unveiled a general plan to develop an export terminal at the Port of Baie-Comeau, Quebec, to send liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Europe.

The project is meant to export up to 15 million tonnes of LNG per year and would be powered by renewable electricity, La Tuque, Quebec-based Kino Aski Inc. said in a release.

Indigenous-owned Kino Aski will hold a majority interest in the project developer, Kino Aski LNG Inc. Marinvest Energy Canada, a subsidiary of Bergen, Norway-based LNG developer Marinvest Energy AS, will be a minority investor.

“Canada has an opportunity to become a trusted long-term energy partner for Europe,” said Atikamekw Nation Grand Chief Constant Awashish, who’s listed on official documents as a company director. “Through Kino Aski LNG, First Nations are not only participating in that future—we are helping shape it.”

“The EU-Canada partnership is not just a friendship of values. It is also a strategic asset,” former Danish climate minister Dan Jørgensen, now serving as European Commissioner for Energy and Housing, said in the release. “Especially at a time when we face turbulent geopolitics and volatile energy markets. By working even closer together on secure and reliable energy supplies, we can strengthen our resilience on both sides of the Atlantic.”

The release said the gas “will be certified for low methane emissions, meeting Europe’s demand for cleaner, more secure energy supplies,” but provides no details on how that will happen. In its own release Monday, Environmental Defence Canada headlined the project as “Canada’s most polluting methane gas export project,” then qualified it as “one of Canada’s largest and most polluting gas megaprojects.”

Methane, the primary component of natural gas, is a climate super-pollutant that carries about 84 times the warming potential of carbon dioxide over the crucial 20-year span when humanity will (still) be scrambling to get climate change under control. [How many times have we written this phrase over how many years?—Ed.]

The project dates back at least to February, 2025, when a coalition of groups using the marinvest.org web address launched a petition against plans to build a pipeline from Ontario to supply gas to the liquefaction plant and terminal in Baie-Comeau. Québécois “have already rejected this type of project,” with their opposition to the Energy East pipeline in 2017 and the GNL Québec LNG project in 2021, and the province became the world’s first jurisdiction to ban oil and gas exploration in 2022, states the petition site, which has so far garnered 29,195 signatures.

“Every time, it was citizen mobilization that put an end to these projects.”

In December, Quebec environmental groups said Marinvest Energy Canada was considering two possible pipeline routes, though a spokesperson said plans were afoot to avoid populated areas.

“We are making these routes public because it is important for Québécois to see what is currently happening,” Nature Québec Director Alice-Anne Simard told The Canadian Press at the time.

Whatever route the company chooses, a new 1,000-kilometre pipeline would result in “deforestation along the entire route and significant fragmentation of wildlife and plant habitats, in addition to causing the destruction of numerous wetlands and waterways,” Action Boréale President Henri Jacob said in a release.

“Crossing numerous rivers and waterways also poses risks to aquatic wildlife and water pollution,” he added. “In addition, the 60-metre-wide pipeline right-of-way would greatly limit many traditional activities, such as hunting, fishing, trapping, [and] gathering medicinal plants.”

Notwithstanding Jørgensen’s statement of support, and in spite of the disruptions to oil and gas deliveries through the Strait of Hormuz, the past months have seen a continuing string of predictions that a looming LNG supply glut will eliminate any need for new supplies. With a large chunk of Qatar’s LNG production offline due to the American/Israeli war on Iran, global gas prices are expected to stay high for the next couple of years, Sam Reynolds, research lead for Asian LNG at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), told The Energy Mix in June. But even if a project reached a final investment decision tomorrow, it would take four or five years to build.

“At four years out, let’s say Qatari LNG production is fully back online,” he explained. “The Strait of Hormuz is reopened.” If a new project went online, “they would be entering the market under an LNG glut,” based on projects already under construction in the United States, Qatar, African countries, and Canada.

In Europe, in particular, analysts are skeptical that there will be any future demand for a new LNG project that begins development today.

Ana Maria Jaller-Makarewicz, IEEFA’s lead energy analyst, Europe, said Russia still supplied 16% of the continent’s LNG and 13% of its combined LNG and pipeline gas in the first half of 2025, even after the EU decreased its gas dependence by 20% between 2021 and 2023. But “if the EU continues with policies to reduce gas consumption and scale up renewables, the bloc could replace this supply without increasing gas imports from any source,” she told The Mix last December.

In June, citing research by the University of Oxford, Kristian Strand, president of Copenhagen-based Danfoss Climate Solutions, said Europe has already reduced its energy use by almost 30%—and could eliminate 70% of its remaining gas consumption by 2040 with the right policies in place.

Kino Aski spokesperson Stéphane Gasse, a media relations director at National Public Relations, said his clients wouldn’t have time to answer questions on deadline about plans for translating the development announcement into firm contracts, the cost of the project, whether investors are in place, and whether majority ownership of the project will leave Kino Aski with the majority of the risk if the project fails.

“Many of your questions relate to matters that are commercially confidential and Kino Aski is not prepared to comment on at this time,” Gasse wrote in an email to The Mix. “Additional details will be released as technical studies, environmental assessments, and consultations with rightsholders and stakeholders advance.”