With a mission to inform, empower, celebrate and advocate for British Columbia's current and aspiring business leaders, BCBusiness go behind the headlines and bring readers face to face with the key issues and people driving business in B.C.
Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/1254353
52 INVEST in BC 2 0 2 0 Official Publication of the BC Economic Development Association. In special partnership with BCBusiness. November, there were 4,650 workers employed on the project, BC Hydro reported—3,445 (74 percent) of them from B.C. and 771 (20 percent) from the surrounding Peace River Regional District. Just starting up is TC Energy's Coastal GasLink pipeline, which has a budget of $6.6 billion and is scheduled for completion in 2023. Although the 670-kilometre pipeline will ultimately cross all four northern development regions, its impact is likely to be felt most profoundly in the Northeast as it triggers further tie-in pipelines around its origin site west of Dawson Creek. More important, Coastal GasLink and the LNG Canada export project at its western terminus are expected to stimulate natural gas exploration and production throughout the Northeast, as well as in neighbouring northwestern Alberta. EVEN THE "SMALL" PROJECTS ARE BIG Last October, despite the challenging commodity price and financing environment for the oilpatch generally, Tourmaline Oil announced that it would be spending $1.7 billion in the area over the next five years. Among other things, the Calgary-based company intends to double the capacity of its Gundy gas processing plant. Other significant projects under construction include BC Hydro's Peace Region Electricity Supply Project, the Fort St. John Town Centre development and a new $43-million RCMP detachment in the same city. Looking ahead, the Sundance Clean Methanol Refinery in Chetwynd is in the permitting stage, with a value of $1.5 billion, along with the Sundance Low Carbon Gasoline Refinery ($2.5 billion), located on the same site. Enbridge Frontier, a subsidiary of midstream energy giant Enbridge, has proposed a $2.5-billion "straddle plant" west of Chetwynd that would produce natural gas liquids for further processing in B.C., most likely around Taylor. (Thanks to a recently completed AltaGas terminal in Prince Rupert, northeastern producers can now export butane and propane directly to Asia.) This year Australian investment bank Macquarie Capital and FortisBC lined up behind Renewable Hydrogen Canada, which aims to build a $200-million hydrogen electrolyzer plant in N O R T H E A S T REGIONAL POPULATION 72,000 UNEMPLOYMENT RATE 4.2% TOP EMPLOYERS BY INDUSTRY Construction 16.3% Heath care and social assistance 10.5% Retail trade 10.4% FORECAST EMPLOYMENT GROWTH, 2018-28 14,400 BUILDING PERMIT VALUES (2018) $89.4 MILLION HOUSING STARTS (2018) 92 (FORT ST. JOHN AND DAWSON CREEK ONLY) VALUE OF MAJOR PROJECTS PLANNED OR UNDER CONSTRUCTION $36.9 BILLION BUSINESS INCORPORATIONS (2019) 391 SOURCES: B.C. L ABOUR MARKET OUTLOOK , BC STATS RIGHT: NORTHERN BC TOURISM/JASON HAMBORG/DESTINATION BC