Owner of B.C. ghost town taking another swing at energy exports

But Suthanthiran believes Kitsault’s time as an energy hub has finally come, as trade and geopolitical upheaval focus political attention on boosting oil and gas exports to non-U.S. markets.

His latest pitch is to build two pipelines connecting Alberta to the coast, one for natural gas and one for crude oil. The oil and natural gas, in the form of liquid butanol, would be exported across the Pacific from a marine terminal near Kitsault.

He came armed with a pile of glossy brochures touting Kitsault’s housing and infrastructure offerings late last month when he visited Calgary, where he said he had meetings with Alberta energy ministry staff.

“I truly believe that this is the right thing for Canada and this is the right thing for the First Nations,” the 78-year-old told The Canadian Press in an interview.

The town

Kitsault’s life as a bustling mining town was brief.

Amax Canada Development Ltd. opened a molybdenum mine nearby in 1981. The town it built for workers once boasted 1,200 residents.

But shortly thereafter, the market tanked for molybdenum, an ore used in steelmaking, and the mine shut down. By the end of 1983, Kitsault was empty. It has remained frozen in a 1980s time warp ever since.

When the town was put on the market in 2004, it came with 92 houses, complete with period decor. It also had a hospital with a never-used X-ray machine, a curling rink, swimming pool, library, theatre, shopping mall and pub. The Kitsault Energy brochure says the town has full B.C. Hydro power service.

Over the years, the town has only housed groundskeepers and a smattering of mining workers. Suthanthiran figures he spends $2 million a year to maintain it.

The businessman

A biography on Kitsault Energy’s website tells the story of Suthanthiran’s humble beginnings in India, where it says he sold candy to classmates so he could afford schoolbooks. The bio says he came to Canada in 1969 with $400 and studied engineering at Carleton University in Ottawa. Three years later, unable to find a suitable job in Canada, he moved to the U.S.

His father’s cancer death inspired his career path and he founded a family of companies under the TeamBest Global umbrella focused on equipment used in cancer diagnosis and treatment, the bio said.

Some have run into legal and labour trouble.

In one case dating back more than a decade, Belgian authorities sought Canada’s help executing search warrants related to a criminal investigation into Best Medical Belgium Inc., one of Suthanthiran’s companies. A 2017 Court of Appeal for Ontario decision says the Belgians were looking into allegations of misuse of company assets, concealing assets in insolvency, making false statements, using false documents and money laundering. Suthanthiran has denied wrongdoing. CBC reported last June that the investigation was ongoing.

Later, workers at another one of Suthanthiran’s companies, Best Theratronics in Ottawa, went on strike for almost 10 months amid a bitter pay dispute until an agreement was finally reached early last year. At the same facility, which made equipment used in radiation therapy, the company ran afoul of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission over the financial guarantee for decommissioning required under its licence.

When asked how his expertise figures into his oil and gas ambitions, Suthanthiran replied: “I’m an innovator, I’m an engineer.”

The plan

Suthanthiran wrote in an open letter to Prime Minister Mark Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith last month outlining a vision to “elevate Canada’s role as a global energy leader.”

He is proposing a marine terminal at a deepwater port on Observatory Inlet, about 30 kilometres from the town site, from which tankers of crude would depart for Asia. He says the site would also have a floating facility to manufacture liquid butanol — a chemical with a wide range of uses, including as a fuel — from natural gas. Suthanthiran says it’s a more cost-effective undertaking than LNG, which requires gas to be chilled into a liquid in ultra-cold temperatures.

Along the same inlet, but closer to the Pacific, the Nisga’a Nation and industry partners are planning the floating Ksi Lisims LNG development, which is being expedited as a federal project of national importance.

Barry Prentice, a business professor at the University of Manitoba, said the waters leading to Kitsault are navigable and sheltered.

“From a marine perspective, I don’t see any red lights flashing,” said Prentice, who specializes in transport and supply chains.

The fact that the town is connected to utilities and already has housing available is a bonus, Prentice added.

“If the idea is to move fast on things, I can’t think of any site that would be able to move faster than that,” he said. “Some of the pieces of the puzzle are there.”

Heather Exner-Pirot, senior fellow at the Macdonald Laurier Institute, hadn’t heard of Kitsault as a port option.

“Prince Rupert comes up as a more obvious one, because they have the deep water ports and because they have capacity for the size of the operation that we’d expect,” she said.

Further south and inland, the port of Kitimat already has the LNG Canada terminal in operation and another, Cedar LNG, under construction.

“It is busy and probably constrained,” said Exner-Pirot.

The best bet, she said, is wherever the support from local First Nations is strongest.

“The most welcoming Indigenous nation on that coast would have a very good chance of attracting it.”

The moment

Suthanthiran believes the “stars are lined up” for his latest vision for Kitsault to succeed. The Canada-U.S. trade relationship has been rattled by tariff chaos and annexation threats. That’s honed political attention on boosting exports to markets besides the United States, by far the biggest buyer of Canadian oil and gas.

U.S. plans to boost Venezuelan oil production following the ouster of President Nicolas Maduro in January has intensified calls for Canada to ramp up energy exports to Asia via the West Coast.

The Alberta government is currently leading the charge for a new oilsands pipeline, committing $14 million to early work on a proposal to the federal major projects office, established last year to speed along infrastructure deemed in Canada’s national interest.

Smith has said the aim is for the private sector to eventually take on the project alongside First Nations partners. A sweeping energy agreement Smith and Carney signed late last year envisions a new bitumen pipeline being built in tandem with emissions-reducing measures.

Suthanthiran said Canadian industry remains “gun shy” about taking on such a project.

“Everybody is pointing a finger at somebody else. Who’s going to take the lead? It’s like a dance floor. Nobody wants to go first.”

Suthanthiran said he’s open to selling Kitsault and letting someone else take the reins.

“I don’t have to own the town forever.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 1, 2026.

Lauren Krugel, The Canadian Press

by The Canadian Press

Owner of B.C. ghost town taking another swing at energy exports

Our Community