by Ari Charney

It's been yet another brutal week for U.S. investors in Canadian energy stocks.

First, state-owned Malaysian energy giant Petronas chose to defer its final investment decision on whether to proceed with its estimated USD32 billion Pacific NorthWest liquefied natural gas (LNG) project in British Columbia.

As we wrote last week, the prickly province finally got into gear to accommodate Petronas' year-end deadline, but its efforts appear to have been too little, too late-a perfect (and painful) reminder of the extent to which politicians take wealth creation for granted.

While Pacific NorthWest is just one of as many as 18 proposed Canadian LNG export projects, it was considered the frontrunner in the race for first export. Prior to this announcement, the project's timeline showed that export operations would commence in 2019, at the earliest.

Should Petronas decide that it simply doesn't make sense to proceed at this juncture, then that could push the timeline for the overall industry back, while resulting in export volumes lower than the 2 billion cubic feet per day that analysts had projected by 2020.

With the U.S. absorbing the vast majority of Canada's energy exports, it's absolutely critical for the country to diversify its export markets, especially now that the U.S. shale boom has created a glut of production. And LNG exports will hopefully still be a big part of that.

Although it's possible Petronas will still decide to pursue the project after all, the ultra-long-term contracts that underpin global LNG trade mean that the already narrow window of opportunity is rapidly closing.

In the past, the company's tough talk seemed like a negotiating tactic. That could still be the case, though, at this point, it sounds like it's all about making the numbers work.

And one of the factors that likely drove British Columbia to offer greater concessions than it had previously could also be the project's undoing: the bear market in crude oil.