LNG Canada has announced that its joint venture participants – Shell, PETRONAS, PetroChina, Mitsubishi Corporation and KOGAS – have taken a Final Investment Decision (FID) to build the LNG Canada export facility in Kitimat, British Columbia, in the traditional territory of the Haisla Nation.
“The Final Investment Decision taken by our joint venture participants shows that British Columbia and Canada, working with First Nations and local communities, can deliver competitive energy projects,” said Andy Calitz, CEO of LNG Canada. “This decision showcases how industrial development can co-exist with environmental stewardship and Indigenous interests.”
Each joint venture participant will be responsible to provide its own natural gas supply and will individually offtake and market its share of LNG. The FID is for two processing units or “trains,” with first LNG expected before the middle of the next decade.
“The project LNG Canada is bringing to northern B.C. symbolizes the kind of balanced and sustainable path forward British Columbians are looking for,” said B.C. Premier John Horgan. “We welcome the unprecedented commitment shown by the LNG Canada partners to work within our province’s ambitious climate goals. The critical importance of this project is what it represents – the intersecting of economic development, jobs for local workers, partnerships with Indigenous communities and forward-looking climate leadership.
We’re delighted the global business community sees British Columbia as a natural home for this kind of investment.” LNG Canada has worked towards FID since it first identified Kitimat from a list of 500 potential sites in British Columbia as the ideal location for an LNG export facility.
LNG Canada’s export plant has been designed to achieve the lowest carbon intensity of any large-scale LNG plant operating in the world today. LNG Canada achieved this through a combination of using renewable hydropower from BC Hydro and highly-efficient gas turbine engines.
With demand for LNG expected to double by 2035 compared with today as a result of global commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve air quality, LNG Canada will provide natural gas to countries where imported gas could displace more carbon-intensive energy sources and help to address global climate change and air pollution.
“We look forward to helping Canada take its place on the global map of LNG exporting countries and want to recognize the important role played by all levels of government, First Nations and the many people that supported LNG Canada to help us get to an FID,” said Calitz. “We also thank our joint venture participants for their trust in our ability to deliver a cost-competitive and reliable source of LNG for their global portfolios.”
LNG Canada is advantaged by access to abundant, low-cost natural gas from British Columbia’s vast reserves and the relatively short shipping distance to North Asia, which is about 50 per cent shorter than from the U.S. Gulf of Mexico and avoids the Panama Canal. The LNG Plant will be constructed on a large, partially-developed industrial site with existing deep-water port, roads, rail and power supplies.
