Thank you for being here today.
Just listening to Mr. Zimmer and his line of questioning on natural gas made me decide to go in that direction. When I was last in Mr. Zimmer's riding in Prince George, I was at a natural resources meeting where the local experts in those projects up there said that they needed a price of $6, I think, for natural gas for those LNG projects to be financially viable. Right now, the price is less than half of that. I think the best projections for the next 10 years are that it may go up to $4. I also have talked to experts in natural resource economy and trade to Eurasia. They say the China market for natural gas is declining. That's one concern I have about those things.
A couple of years ago, I was down in Argentina at a G20 meeting with Minister Carr when he was Minister of Natural Resources. He was talking about the need to export our natural gas and get credit for that shift from coal to natural gas. He said that we want to do this with China, and the Chinese minister got up and said, “We are moving directly from coal to renewables.” You could take that with a grain of salt, but I just wanted to get a reply from the department about natural gas and how the future looks for Canadian exports abroad, considering these very low prices and changing markets.