Event22 October 2021Action

AltaGas cancels the Alton natural gas storage project in Nova Scotia

Alton Gas, a subsidiary of Calgary-based AltaGas, said it would not continue developing the underground natural gas storage project on the Shubenacadie River and would decommission it. Its release cited the 2018 sale of its Nova Scotia utility, the repositioning of its business and the challenging economics of the storage project, and said the project had received mixed support, challenges and delay. The project had been on hold since Mi'kmaw protests began in 2014; in March 2020 the Nova Scotia Supreme Court ruled that the province had to resume consultation with Sipekne'katik First Nation. Nova Scotia's natural resources minister called it a business decision by the company (CBC News, Oct. 22, 2021).

Date

22 October 2021

Kind

Investment decision

Where

Nova Scotia

Evidence

Action: Something was done: a law switched on, a tariff imposed, money committed. How evidence is weighed

Sources

• CBC News, “Alton Gas project cancelled after years of opposition” (external site), 22 October 2021. source record

Claims that rest on this event

• ContextMechanism

  In the record so far, resource projects facing organized First Nations, Métis or Inuit opposition reached construction about as often as those without it (approved: 4 of 7 vs 1 of 2; under review: 2 of 4 vs 2 of 8); tiny, selected samples.

  Alton gas storage, fought by Sipekne'katik in court after its approval, was cancelled by AltaGas in 2021, which cited the project's economics and its own change of strategy as well as the delays: an opposed approved project that did not reach construction.