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“I’ve become so numb to all of these delays,” Raymond James analyst Jeremy McCrea said, adding that the FERC decision was disappointing but not necessarily surprising given it’s become more difficult to build major energy projects across North America. “It’s more of a surprise if something does go through,” he said.

The delay to Jordan Cove LNG comes as protesters across Canada blockade commuter and freight railways in solidarity with a breakaway group of Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs who have opposed the Coastal GasLink pipeline, which would connect gas fields in northern B.C. with the under-construction $40-billion LNG Canada export facility near Kitimat, B.C.

At one point, there were more than 20 proposed LNG export projects proposed on the B.C. coast but so far the Royal Dutch Shell Plc-led LNG Canada is the only project that is under construction, while other projects have been abandoned or delayed.

Amid all the turmoil, domestic gas companies and pipeline companies are looking for more inventive ways to move natural gas out of Western Canada, clearing a glut in Alberta and B.C. that has resulted in rock-bottom prices.

It’s more of a surprise if something does go through Raymond James analyst Jeremy McCrea

Calgary-based pipeline giant TC Energy Corp. announced earlier this month it would spend $1.3 billion to expand its natural gas pipeline network in a bid to move more Canadian gas to “growing LNG export and other markets along the U.S. Gulf Coast.”

TC Energy president and CEO Russ Girling said on an earnings call that spending, in combination with other projects the company is pursuing, “will provide Western Canadian production a seamless path to growing LNG export markets and other markets along the U.S. Gulf Coast.”