Bloomberg News headlines a story on Canadian LNG plans getting the lead over US plans to export natural gas to Asia.
An LNG terminal being built at a cove north of Vancouver financed by a Houston private-equity firm is scheduled to begin shipping the fuel across the Pacific Ocean in mid-2015, eight months before the first continental U.S. plant is slated to start.
Canada, has seen a surge in gas production, issued its third LNG export license in February for a project led by Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSA) in British Columbia. All together, the trio of approved Canadian projects will have the capacity to ship 4.66 billion cubic feet of gas a day, more than double the 2.2 billion cubic feet of capacity that has been permitted in the U.S., according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Asian energy consumption trends will determine the number of LNG terminals that get built in Canada, where the gas endowment is so large the government has little reason to restrict exports, Joe Oliver, the nation’s natural resources minister, said in an interview in Vancouver.
Chevron agreed in December to buy a 50 percent stake in the Kitimat LNG project near the Douglas Channel project. The Horn River and Liard gas fields that will supply Kitimat may hold more than 50 trillion cubic feet of gas, Watson said, or enough to supply South Korea’s current level of imports for 29 years.
With 5 LNG projects slated for possible development in north-west BC LNG exports are looking very promising for economic development in Prince Rupert and Kitimat.