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VANCOUVER — As Canada’s efforts to send oil abroad encounter thorny opposition, critics are increasingly targeting another resource export: Coal.
Plans to export thermal coal from the West Coast to Asia are being put under the microscope as North American miners jockey to ship abundant domestic supplies overseas.
Demand for thermal coal, a commodity used by power plants to generate electricity, has weakened in recent years in North America due to the boom in U.S. shale gas production. With many U.S. power plants switching to natural gas, a coal glut has forced miners to look to Asia for new markets.
Fraser Surrey Docks LP, a marine terminal located on the Fraser River in the Vancouver suburb of Surrey, wants to serve as a new staging ground for exports of thermal coal originating from Wyoming’s Powder River basin. Fraser Surrey Docks is owned by Macquarie Infrastructure Partners, an investment fund managed by Australia’s Macquarie Group.
The U.S. mining and shipping sectors see an enormous opportunity to sell to energy-thirsty customers in Asia if new export sites are built in Washington state and Oregon. Only one per cent of coal output in Wyoming, the largest coal-producing state, went to exports in 2011.
The hot topic of Alberta’s oil sands and pipeline plans such as Northern Gateway and Keystone XL have overshadowed battles over proposed exports of coal. Coal export proposals in the United States have either been suspended by proponents or run into fierce opposition from environmentalists in the U.S. Pacific Northwest.
Delays south of the border have created an opening for Fraser Surrey Docks to handle up to eight million tonnes a year of American thermal coal through its B.C. terminal. Coal arriving on railcars would be loaded onto barges and then towed to Asia-bound vessels at a Texada Island port facility, roughly 100 kilometres northwest of Vancouver.
The issue of thermal coal exports has mobilized a diverse group of opponents whose concerns range from global warming due to increased use of the commodity in Asia to local health worries about air and water quality from coal dust and potential spills.
Those opposing include environmental groups, the B.C. Nurses Union, First Nations leaders, Vancouver City Savings Credit Union, community organizations and most of the directors at Metro Vancouver, the region’s political body. Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson, who led a civic trade mission to Asia last November, opposes the Fraser Surrey Docks’ expansion into thermal coal.
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