Petro-Canada's (PCZ) natural gas assets in the Arctic would be a dream liquefied natural gas project, but regulatory and technical hurdles means it is still a long way off from development, Chief Executive Ron Brenneman said Wednesday.

The company has significant natural gas reserves in the Eastern Arctic islands, but lack of a fiscal regime and the harsh operating environment means "it's too early to visualize what (a project) might look like," Brenneman said at an investors conference in Edmonton.

"It's a size that theoretically could support an LNG project," he said. "We've got a small team to look at the feasibility of that." He added that developing the resource as an LNG project was more likely than as a pipeline project.

Despite the challenges, however, the project has a "certain personal appeal for me," Brenneman said, adding, "If I were 25 years younger, I'd be signing this up as the project to die for."

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