Apache Corporation has announced the appointment of Graham Lawton as vice president – liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects.
As such he will be leading the Kitimat project team for the LNG facility and Pacific Trail Pipeline.
Lawton joined Apache in March 2011 and has 30 years of experience in the gas industry, half of that in LNG projects.
The holder of a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Sheffield in England, he had been vice president of LNG at Hunt Oil since 2005 and served as general manager of COLP, the operating company of Peru LNG.
Previously, he was operations director at Marathon Oil where he worked for Equatorial Guinea (EG) LNG. Over the years he has worked in the United Kingdom, United States, Tunisia, Singapore, Trinidad, India and Peru.
Meanwhile Apache’s request for an extension of the Environmental Assessment Certificate for its Kitimat project has been granted.
The original approval was issued June 1, 2006 to Kitimat LNG, then owned by Galveston and planned as an import operation.
It carried the usual requirement that Kitimat LNG have substantially started construction within five years.
In November 2008 Kitimat LNG applied for an amendment to allow the export of LNG, which was approved the following January.
In January 2010 Apache bought 51 per cent of the project by which time the construction deadline was only 18 months away.
This Spring Apache applied for the extension of the deadline and the Environmental Assessment Office, hearing no objections from the Haisla or any government agencies, approved it.
The extension is until June 1, 2016 and is the only one that will be given.
