This week, many of the world’s largest investors gathered in Toronto for the Canada Investment Summit. The federal government wants to mobilize long‑term capital and advance major projects, and its prospectus correctly identifies East Coast LNG as well positioned to serve Europe.
Yet Canada’s most practical Atlantic LNG opportunity was not among the projects showcased.
It sits in Saint John, New Brunswick, where Repsol owns Canada’s first LNG receiving and regasification terminal. The shale revolution erased the import market it was built to serve, leaving valuable infrastructure operating far below its potential. Canada should examine converting it into a bidirectional terminal capable of exporting North American gas to Europe.
The idea is not new. Repsol studied an export conversion and shelved it in 2023 because moving Western Canadian gas across the continent cost more than the project could bear. What has changed is the answer to the problem that defeated that study and every earlier East Coast proposal: feedgas.
The cost of starting from scratch is instructive. Nova Scotia’s 10‑million‑tonne Goldboro LNG project carried estimates of $9‑billion to $13‑billion before it was shelved in 2021. The Summit prospectus now includes Kino Aski LNG, a $23‑billion, pre‑application proposal that would move Western gas to Baie‑Comeau, Quebec, through roughly 1,000 kilometres of new pipeline to floating liquefaction plants on the St. Lawrence. Both illustrate the burden any project that begins with a transcontinental pipeline carries.
Saint John invites a different question: why transport gas across Canada when the Marcellus basin—one of the world’s largest and lowest‑cost natural‑gas resources—lies much closer to the south?
Much of the required corridor already exists. Marcellus gas moves into New England, the Maritimes & Northeast Pipeline carries it to New Brunswick, and the Brunswick Pipeline links that system to Saint John. Enbridge called its last corridor expansion, completed in 2021, Atlantic Bridge; the name suits the larger project. These pipelines were not configured to provide firm export feedgas. Additional capacity, compression, interconnections and bidirectional flow would have to be engineered and contracted. That is significant, but fundamentally different from building a new transcontinental supply chain.
The terminal is the project’s central advantage. Saint John already has LNG storage, a deep‑water berth, regasification facilities, an industrial site and a pipeline connection. It also holds a 25‑year export licence, which the Canada Energy Regulator amended in 2023 to require exports to begin by May 20, 2032. The groundwork exists, but the opportunity will not remain open indefinitely.
A sensible first phase would be modest by global standards: roughly 300 million cubic feet per day of feedgas supporting about two million tonnes a year of LNG, the scale Repsol itself contemplated. Liquefaction, gas treatment and compression would require substantial investment, with costs tested through engineering. Reusing a functioning terminal avoids much of the cost, time and risk associated with a greenfield port, jetty and storage complex.
Geography strengthens the case. Saint John is roughly a week’s sailing from Northwest Europe, a shorter route than the U.S. Gulf Coast offers, and unlike LNG from Canada’s Pacific coast, it points directly to the market Atlantic LNG is intended to serve.
Europe’s need is structural. It has reduced Russian pipeline imports but not its dependence on imported gas. Norway, the United States and Qatar will remain essential suppliers; what Europe seeks is diversification across reliable jurisdictions and routes. LNG from a Canadian terminal, using traceable North American gas that meets Europe’s evolving methane standards, could contribute to that objective.
Critics will note that much of the feedgas would originate in the United States. But the same logic already operates in reverse: Western Canadian gas flows into the U.S. pipeline network that supplies Gulf Coast export terminals. Atlantic Bridge would move U.S.‑sourced gas north, add value in Canada and deliver it to a NATO ally. Economic sovereignty does not require every molecule to originate inside our borders; it requires Canada to hold a meaningful place in the value chain.
Nor should Ottawa pick commercial winners. Producers, marketers or European buyers could contract the pipeline and liquefaction capacity. Government’s first step is not a subsidy or a final investment decision. It is a feasibility process: can firm gas reach Saint John, and at what toll? Which terminal assets can be reused? Will European buyers sign contracts long enough to support financing? These questions are answerable at a fraction of the project’s cost.
The Summit was meant to connect capital with productive assets. Few fit that description better than an underused Canadian energy facility that could become the closest major North American LNG gateway to Northwest Europe.
Canada has spent years debating Atlantic LNG as though its only options were an uneconomic cross‑country pipeline or another greenfield megaproject. The terminal is in Saint John. The gas is to the south. The pipeline corridor exists in skeleton form. Europe needs secure diversification, and the export licence has a clock.
The question is no longer whether Canada possesses an Atlantic LNG opportunity. It is whether we are prepared to test the most practical one while time remains.
David A. McLellan spent more than 30 years in energy and finance. He is a Senior Fellow at the Haultain Research Institute and a member of the boards of Blackhawk Oil & Gas, FX Energy and Ascent Energy Ventures.
This excellent proposal would require a canadian leader (and majority voters) who wanted to make canada great again.
Good points!