Another liquefied-natural-gas project once proposed for B.C. is officially dead.

Yesterday (September 14), companies said that Aurora LNG, which was planned for Digby Island, just west of Prince Rupert, will not go ahead.

It’s estimated the project would have cost $28 billion.

It was proposed by Nexen Energy, a Calgary-based subsidiary of the Chinese corporation CNOOC Ltd., and INPEX Gas British Columbia Ltd., a corporation based in Japan.

The companies said that after four years of planning and analysis, the project was cancelled on account of market forces and concerns for long-term profitability.

"Over the past four years, Aurora LNG has been conducting a thorough feasibility study on liquefying and shipping LNG from the northwest coast of British Columbia to Asian markets," reads a Nexen Energy media release. "Through this feasibility study, Aurora LNG has determined that the current macro-economic environment does not currently support the partners’ vision of developing a large LNG business at the proposed Digby Island site."

The move follows a July 2017 decision by the Malaysian-controlled Pacific NorthWest LNG to cancel plans to build a $36-million facility on Lelu Island just south of Prince Rupert.

That month, the company similarly said market conditions meant the project would not go ahead.

Four months earlier, in March 2017, Royal Dutch Shell announced it had shelved plans to construct a yet another LNG facility proposed for a location near Prince Rupert. That one was to be built on Ridley Island.

At one point, the former B.C. Liberal government had ambitious to bring as many as 20 natural-gas facilities to the province. Then-premier Christy Clark boasted that LNG would produce billions of dollars in tax revenue and eliminate the provincial debt.

The Liberals’ plan was to create an industry in B.C. that would primarily sell natural gas to Asia. But an abundance of the resource reaching international markets led prices to drop.

Since then, only one corporation has followed through with plans for a development in B.C. That’s Woodfibre LNG, which is on track to construct a $1.6-billion facility near Squamish.