Municipality of the District of Guysborough

Around the world energy security and affordability is the constant economic wildcard.  The District of Guysborough, as the onshore terminal for Nova Scotia’s offshore oil and gas reserves and with excellent potential for wind and possibilities for hydro power is in as good a position as any in the region in this regard.

Sable Offshore Energy

The Sable Offshore Energy Project (SOEP) land-base is located in the Goldboro Industrial Park, in the south of the District. The industrial park is owned by the Municipality.

Led by ExxonMobil, a consortium that includes Shell Canada, Imperial Oil Canada, Mosbacher Operating Ltd and Pengrowth Energy Trust, the Goldboro facility is linked to fields producing natural gas near Sable Island, on the edge of the Nova Scotia Continental Shelf. SOEP produces between 400 and 500 million cubic feet (14,000,000 m3) of natural gas and 20,000 barrels (3,200 m3) of natural gas liquids daily.

The first gas was shipped to market in January 2000 from the Goldboro gas plant, through the Maritimes & Northeast Pipeline to the North-Eastern United States.

The Sable Offshore Energy Project – at more than $3 billion - is the largest capital project in the history of the Province of Nova Scotia. The development put in place physical infrastructure that has attracted additional investment interest. As a result of this interest, the Municipality of the District of Guysborough has assembled more than 850 acres of zoned industrial land adjacent to the Goldboro Gas Plant, and room to grow beyond that if required.   The Goldboro Industrial Park offers deep-water, marine industrial access to large tracts of industrially-zoned land. 

Maritimes & Northeast Pipeline

Maritimes & Northeast Pipeline (M&NP) is a 1,400-kilometre transmission pipeline system built in 1999 to transport natural gas from offshore Nova Scotia to markets in Atlantic Canada and the Northeastern United States. A joint venture of Spectra Energy (77.53%), Emera Inc. (12.92%), and ExxonMobil Canada (9.55%), M&NP is headquartered in Halifax, Nova Scotia. M&NP system capacity is approximately 530 million cubic feet per day.

The M&NP system consists of a mainline that runs from the gas plant in Goldboro, through Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts. The mainline interconnects with Portland Natural Gas Transmission System, Tennessee Gas Transmission, and Algonquin Gas Transmission. Through lateral pipelines M&NP serves markets in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

M&NP’s major customers include natural gas producers, large industrial users such as pulp and paper companies, refineries, power generators, and local distribution companies.

With an established pipeline system in place, M&NP is well-positioned to respond to growth in both East Coast gas supply and end-use markets in Eastern Canada and the U.S. Northeast. Through the addition of compression and pipeline looping, M&NP can flexibly increase its throughput to transport incremental gas supply to market.

EnCana’s Deep Panuke

The Panuke project involves the installation of facilities required to produce and process natural gas from the Deep Panuke field, approximately 250 kilometers southeast of Nova Scotia on the Scotian Shelf.  Natural gas from Deep Panuke will be processed offshore and transported, via subsea pipeline to Goldboro for further transport to markets in Canada and the Northeast United States.  An additional land based pipeline and metering station will be constructed in the Goldboro Industrial Park and connected to Maritimes and Northeast Pipeline’s export pipeline. The design capacity of the current project is 300 MMscfd of sales gas.

www.encana.com/operations/canada/deeppanuke/index

Wind Energy

The District of Guysborough has the second best wind resource in the province. The Meaghers Hill Second Generation Waste Management Facility was tested several years ago and the results of the test indicated that it would be a good site for wind power generation.

A wind atlas for the province can be accessed at www.nswindatlas.ca.  Several companies are currently testing the wind régime in the District. Renewable Energy Services (www.resl.ca) and InvEnergy (www.invenergyllc.com/canada) have test towers scattered throughout the District.

Under current regulations, only Municipal Utilities and Nova Scotia Power are able to purchase wind power.  Municipal regulations regarding wind turbines are found in the land-use plans for the various districts within the Municipality.