The federal government is offering tax breaks to help bolster B.C.’s budding liquefied natural gas industry.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced Thursday that companies involved in natural gas liquefaction can receive capital cost allowances of 30 per cent for equipment and 10 per cent for buildings.
“These initiatives will provide the LNG industry with even greater incentive to invest in Canada’s future.” Harper told a crowd at Kwantlen Polytechnic University in Surrey.
“Developing our natural gas resources and encouraging LNG export growth will mean good, well-paying jobs for thousands of British Columbians, including in our aboriginal communities.”
The measures are similar to others already offered to the manufacturing and processing sectors, he added.
Harper said shipping LNG is capital intensive, but the government’s “substantial tax measures” will allow companies to recover startup costs faster.
B.C. has boasted about 18 potential LNG deals, but none have come to fruition yet.
LNG was also conspicuously absent from the province’s budget speech on Tuesday, despite being a cornerstone of Premier Christy Clark’s 2013 election campaign, where she promised a multibillion-dollar industry with 100,000 jobs.
According to Ottawa, global LNG trade is expected to rise by 40 per cent between 2013 and 2019.
