The T&T is selling dreams of oil & gas exploration powering the NB economy. Once again, Al Hogan loves to hype stuff up with no facts. The McCully field is producing and is profitable (as I understand it). Last year, the field led to the export of $53 million in natural gas. By way of comparison, NS say $870 million, Manitoba $775 million, Sask $5.8 billion, B.C. $4 billion and Albert $55.5 billion (in the words of Kirk Macdonald “that’s billion with a b”).
So, economic developers and government policy makers need to chill out and stop selling pipe dreams. They should aggressively promote New Brunswick for oil & gas exploration but to expect that anytime in the next 20 years there will more than a couple of hundred million in export sales (of which NB would take a few million in royalties – tops) – is pipe dreaming.
They should have tried to use that gas to power economic development right here in New Brunswick – but it’s too late for that.