Chinese consortium Petronas wants to use principally Chinese workers with a few technical engineers from the USA and Europe to build the LNG terminals in Norther BC and are hinting that unless concessions are made the project may be put on indefinate hold.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-o ... e20815508/

The Chinese essentially say there are not enough Canadians willing to travel for work as evidenced by the problems Alberta has.

So we have a hard decision to make here. The wealth these resource projects and facilities in remote area generate helps to subsidise the social programs that allow us to remain in areas where there is little to no work available.

Do we:

1. Just stop developing and start paying higher prices for energy, goods and services and tolerate the uptick in unemployment in regions that supply engineering, geological and special equipment?

2. Adjust the social safety net to force people to choose between the streets and working where the jobs are?

3. Allow foreign companies to use only their own workers under their own laws similar to Canadian construction/resource companies operating in the third world?

Petronas is Malaysian.

In BC, you can only get welfare 2 out of every 5 years as it is, @ 600/mo for work capable adults. I doubt anybody collecting this munificence tho, has the skills required for the LNG work.

Large projects require large numbers of workers for a short time. We should first make sure that every Canadian who wants and is qualified for one of these jobs has been offered it, and the same assistance as TFW's, ie relocation assistance. We should also make sure we help Canadians get qualiftied - none of these projects are anywhere near ready to go, or even certain they will go. Then we can start talking about also bringing in TFW's if still needed.

Ultimately this will be the same bullshit as the Chinese mine, where the claim was that Canada had no qualified people, so they needed Chinese miners. The miners union showed how many Canadians were ready and willing to work on that job, but had never been offered the job. Don't fall for the bullshit that these companies sling.

Anyone really surprised that a company from the third world wants to use third world workers at subpar wages (with nil safety regs no doubt)?

Our resources can't be offshored like our manufacturing sector but some seem intent on profiting from them with as little involvement from us as possible.

Ahhh, Coolee labour ... and old Canadian tradition.

This may explain why- The profit level is at 14-15 per and gas is selling at lower prices.

http://www.edmontonjournal.com/business ... =2bb1-a1cf
In addi­tion, LNG prices in Asia have dropped, hit­ting multi-year lows of around $10 US per mil­lion Brit­ish ther­mal units (MMBtu) in July, as new sup­plies come onstream and China’s econ­omy slows. Prices have re­bounded since, but the days of $20 LNG are prob­ably gone for good.

A ma­jor Rus­sian nat­ural gas ex­port pipe­line, which will sup­ply gas to China at rough­ly $10 per MMBtu, is driv­ing down Asian LNG con­tract prices. Even Qatar, a ma­jor LNG sup­pli­er with some of the lowest break even costs in the world, is be­ing forced to dis­count prices to se­cure cus­tom­ers.

Since B.C.’s big LNG pro­jects are be­lieved to need an aver­age LNG price of per­haps $14 or $15 per MMBtu to earn a prof­it, that ex­plains why Pe­tro­nas may be will­ing to walk away rath­er than sink bil­lions into a pro­ject that could be­come a fi­nan­cial black hole.

What’s more, LNG pro­jects are a dime a dozen these days. They’re spring­ing up all over the plan­et, from the U.S. Gulf Coast to Aus­tralia to Papua New Guin­ea and even East Africa. Many are al­read­y in pro­duc­tion, and others that are in the ap­prov­al pro­cess or under con­struc­tion are far ahead of the pro­jects in B.C.

Leave it in the ground. it will be worth many times more in a generation or two. Leave some natural wealth for our children.