The explosive growth of LNG markets in recent years, compounded by the increasingly urgent need to decarbonise, has forced oil and gas companies to create multi-stakeholder partnerships to ensure continued growth, delegates at LNG2023 heard on July 12.

At a session titled Growth of LNG Through Innovative Partnerships and Cooperation, panelists were unanimous in their assessment that industry today is much different than it was as recently as five years ago.

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The challenges, skills, processes and layers of collaboration needed today are far more complex that they used to be, TC Energy CEO Francois Poirier said.

“In the old days, if you were good at engineering and construction and you could raise money, you would be successful,” he said. “But as we all know, uncertainty is the enemy of investment.”

To eliminate uncertainty, companies have had to increase their competencies to influence policy and regulation, Poirier said, noting that for TC Energy, that needs to be done across three national jurisdictions – Canada, the US and Mexico – in which it has active operations.

But collaborations and cooperation are also needed closer to home, he said, offering the example of the Shell-led LNG Canada export project, which will be supported by Coastal GasLink, a TC Energy subsidiary that is building the pipeline that will deliver feed gas to LNG Canada.

“Policymakers and regulators don’t differentiate the ecosystem around a project,” he said. “There’s a liquefaction facility and a pipeline – they view them as a single effort, which means we need to work very closely with our customer to make sure the degree of engagement we’re undertaking with indigenous rights holders and the policymaker is very closely co-ordinated and is consistent.”

Paul Marsden, president, energy for EPC contractor Bechtel Energy, said any collaboration with stakeholders is better the earlier it is formed.

“We all do our best when we get involved early in the project,” he said. “The actual process for undertaking energy projects hasn’t changed. But what has changed is that they are getting bigger, they are getting harder.”

And energy projects, particularly gas projects, are evolving beyond the natural gas projects that are familiar to many in the industry, said Cederic Cremer, executive vice president for LNG at global major Shell.

“We have all had to change our frame of mind about what the gas business is,” he said. “It will always be pipeline gas and methane, and it will be that for quite some time, and it will also be other, lower carbon gases, whether that’s hydrogen or ammonia or even synthetic gas. But methane and oil will be here for quite some time – we need to be able to decarbonise those.”

And governments too, have had to change how they view energy projects, said Stuart Young, Minister of Energy and Energy Industries with the government of Trinidad & Tobago.

“We have had to learn to work, to really listen, and to find a way to move forward,” he said, noting that it’s no longer enough for policymakers to pay attention only to those who elect them.

“It is very easy for people out there who have the responsibility to take positions and say you have to shut down fossil fuels,” he said. “But gas is here to stay, it is going to be here well beyond 2050.”

This feature was originally published in the LNG2023 Daily, produced by NGW during the LNG2023 conference in Vancouver July 10-13.