Seven Generations Energy has gotten conditional approval for a $5 million tax credit to help build its new gas plant south of Grande Prairie. The plant will be the company’s third in the Montney/Kakwa River area, and spokesperson Alan Boras says it will increase their capacity in the region by roughly 50 per cent.
“We now have our own plants that process about 500 million cubic feet a day; this will add another 250. We also use another plant that’s owned by another company, so this will kind of take us into the billion cubic feet a day of gas processing, which is very sizable in the Canadian industry.
Construction is already underway, and it’s expected the facility will be up and running by the end of the year, 100 kilometres south of the city. Boras says the provincial tax credit announced by Minister of Economic Development and Trade Deron Bilous Wednesday at the Growing the North Conference gives Seven Generations an edge.
“The tax credit is again an expression by the government of support for the industry to create the right formulas for us to be competitive in a global world.”
$5 million is the maximum Capital Investment Tax Credit available through the provincial government. It’s a return of up to 10 per cent of the costs of new machinery, equipment or buildings once purchased and being used on new construction projects. Bilous says it’s meant to be an incentive.
“Essentially what we’re doing is levelling the playing field. These types of programs exist in other jurisdictions and we want to encourage companies to invest today, because as our economy is recovering the jobs are much needed today as well as the revenues that come from them.”
Around 150 jobs have been created by the gas plant’s construction, and the province says “dozens” will be permanent once it’s operational.