The Yukon is ready for an LNG industry here, Premier Darrell Pasloski said in a recent interview at a mining conference in Denver, Colo.

Pasloski was answering a mining reporter’s question regarding what challenges the territory faces in terms of providing the required infrastructure to support the mining sector.

The Yukon offers an expansive road network, much more than the other two territories, he noted.

Pasloski said the government is expanding hydro capacity, and the electrical grid already reaches most communities.

The Yukon also works with the State of Alaska because it has the ice-free, deep water seaports, he said.

“And we are also heavily involved in LNG, and I think that is very important,” the premier said in the Sept. 16 interview, which is posted on Twitter.

“Right now, we have put in place the legislation and the regulations to be able to have an LNG industry within the Yukon and we are right now building the first LNG power generating engines for energy.”

Pasloski said there are some mining companies in the Yukon which are considering the use of liquefied natural gas to provide their power generation.

With the Yukon establishing an LNG supply link to power the new generating plant, it provides those projects with a viable LNG option to supply their own needs, he said.

In an interview with the Star this morning, the premier emphasized that establishing an LNG industry in the Yukon does not mean approving the use of hydraulic fracturing here.

He said it means what the Yukon Party said in its 2011 election platform: that his party would look to liquefied natural gas as short- to medium-term fuel to provide back-up power generation because it’s cleaner and less expensive than diesel fuel.

His words in Denver cannot be twisted to suggest the Yukon government has already stamped its approval of hydraulic fracturing, despite what Opposition Leader Liz Hanson said in a press release this morning, Pasloski insisted.

He said Hanson is dead-wrong when she suggests he is undermining the work of the legislative committee investigating the pros and cons of fracking by indicating the Yukon is ready for the liquefied natural gas industry.

The Yukon, he said, has put in place the necessary tools for transporting and using LNG in the Yukon.

It’s paving the way to a supply chain that can assist the mining industry and the economic viability of mining projects such as the Wellgreen and Casino proposals, Pasloski said.

He said energy generation is a significant cost, and if the Yukon government can help shine a light on a cost-effective alternative to diesel to make their projects viable, it will.

“The bottom line is that using LNG does not mean we are supporting hydraulic fracturing,”

Promoting the use of LNG as an alternative does not mean the territory is opening the door to an extraction industry, Pasloski insisted.

The NDP leader, on the other hand, said the premier’s words in Denver do indeed indicate he has already made up his mind on fracking, even before the legislative committee has finished its work.

“Yukoners are all too familiar with the Yukon Party’s lack of meaningful consultation and as with the Peel, we see the government hiding its real intentions from the public and making decisions before the process has been completed,” Hanson said in her release.

Also sounding the alarm about the premier’s comments is NDP MLA Jim Tredger, a member of the legislative committee looking into hydraulic fracturing.

“Many people worried aloud at the hearings that the Yukon Party government had already made its decision regarding fracking and the LNG industry,” Tredger said in this morning’s NDP release. “It is distressing to see that this could be true.

“The premier’s statements in advance of the report being submitted completely undermine the effectiveness and credibility of the process. It also reinforces the fears of the many Yukoners who provided thoughtful and sincere input to the committee.”

The premier also told the interviewer in Denver his Yukon government has been working with the federal government and Yukon First Nations to streamline the environmental assessment process.

“In fact, I am speaking later in September in Ottawa to the Senate about those changes, in support of those changes the federal government wants to make, which is going to provide better timelines and better certainty for industry.”

Pasloski said this morning the review of the assessment process did undergo an intensive period of consultation with all parties, beginning in 2008.

And while Yukon First Nations have threatened a lawsuit if the proposed amendments go forward, the premier said it was not his place to comment on the position of the First Nations.

The proposed amendments are currently before the Senate for review.

They still have to go through the approval process in the House of Commons.

There has been substantial opposition to Yukon Energy’s new generating plant powered by natural gas which will be trucked up from Delta, B.C.

There’s been greater opposition to the possibility of permitting hydraulic fracturing in the Yukon.

Those opposed to the new plant say it ties the territory to another 40 years of dependency on fossil fuels when the climate can least afford it.

It also ties the Yukon to the controversial practice of hydraulic fracturing – even if it is occurring elsewhere – because fracking is used to extract natural gas which is liquefied for transportation.

There have been many who’ve suggested Yukon Energy’s switch to natural gas from diesel is an obvious backdoor approach by the Yukon government to expand natural gas extraction in the territory.

The Kotaneelee gas fields in southeast Yukon have been the only fields to ever produce natural gas in the Yukon, though they were shut down a couple of years ago because of a shrinking resource.