Kino Aski LNG Project Raises Red Flags for Investors

The Kino Aski LNG project has been pitched to global investors as an ambitious proposal in Canada's federal investment prospectus. The estimated cost of the project is US$23 billion, and it aims to transport Western Canadian natural gas approximately 1,000 kilometers across Ontario to Baie-Comeau, Quebec.

The project would produce up to 15 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas annually for export. Two selling points highlighted in the prospectus are that Kino Aski is First Nations-led and that it would produce ultra-low-emission LNG.

However, experts argue that these claims create a false impression that the project's most sensitive challenges have already been resolved. Indigenous ownership matters, but a pipeline and its climate impacts do not exist only where its owners live.

The proposed corridor would cross the territories of multiple Indigenous Nations, whose rights are not transferred to another Indigenous organization simply because it owns part of the project. Quebec is in the middle of an election campaign and has not authorized the project.