VICTORIA — As Premier Christy Clark marks her fifth year in office, U.S. regulators have served up some discouraging news about the current prospects for selling North American liquefied natural gas in Asian markets.

The latest setback happened Friday when the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) turned thumbs down to an estimated $9.5 billion LNG project in Oregon for lack of evidence of any overseas market for the stuff.

“A decision that stunned supporters and critics alike,” as the Portland-based Oregonian newspaper reported in a story by Ted Sickinger.

Still the 21-page rationale posted at ferc.gov, the commission website, provided a good understanding of why the regulator balked at the proposed Jordan Cove terminal and accompanying pipeline.

Four times commission staff requested details from the would-be developers — including Calgary-based Veresen Inc. — about potential buyers for the estimated annual output of six million tonnes of LNG.

In the most recent response, delivered late last year, the commission was told only that negotiations with prospective customers were “active and ongoing” and partners were “confident that these customers will enter into long-term agreements.”

Nor did the would-be developers take the strong hint from the commission and tentatively sound out potential buyers via the informal process known as an “open season.”

At the same time, the commission was fielding major objections to the project from environmentalists, community groups and owners of property along the 370-kilometre route of the pipeline for transporting gas from an existing line in central Oregon to the terminal site near Coos Bay on the coast.

There were more than 600 such private owners and the developers had only obtained rights of way from about five per cent.

But as the commission recognized in its decision, if it were to grant approval to the project, it would clear the way for the builders to invoke the principle of eminent domain and expropriate the necessary rights of way for construction of the pipeline.

As a general rule, the commission will only grant approval to a project if it can be shown that the public benefits outweigh the adverse effects on landowners and the like.

But in the absence of any evidence of a market for the product, the commission could not point to any obvious benefit.

Hence the denial of a certificate for construction and operation of the pipeline and a corresponding finding (because of the absence of the necessary supply of natural gas) that “it will be impossible for the Jordan Cove liquefaction facility to function.”

Which is not necessarily the last word on the prospects for producing LNG on the Oregon coast.

The Jordan Cove developers can appeal the decision, or rework the proposal and reapply. Plus there’s at least one other LNG terminal project in the works for a site near the mouth of the Columbia River.

Still Jordan Cove’s failure to line up buyers in the face of strong indications that those would be needed to secure regulatory approval tends to reinforce suspicions about the limited market for exporting LNG from North American these days.

The Wall Street Journal noted as much last month when Cheniere Energy began shipping LNG from the first of two major export terminals on the U.S. Gulf Coast.