Kitimat, BC – LNG Canada this week received a critical cooldown shipment of LNG from Gladstone, Australia as Canada’s first major LNG export facility remains on track to achieve its first export cargo by the middle of 2025. It is targeted to open up big markets in Asia dominated by LNG suppliers from the United States and Australia.
On April 2, LNG Canada stated: “We’re pleased to announce that today, in a well-coordinated effort with HaiSea Marine personnel and tugboats, British Columbia Coast Pilots and Pacific Pilotage Authority Canada, with support from the Canadian Coast Guard and Canada Border Services Agency, our marine team welcomed for the first time an LNG carrier to the LNG Canada facility in Kitimat, in the traditional territory of the Haisla Nation.”
The Maran Gas Roxana arrived carrying a cargo of liquefied natural gas that is being offloaded into the facility for equipment testing.
“This activity is critical to our safe start-up and commissioning process in advance of our operations, and to achieving our first LNG export cargoes by the middle of 2025,” LNG Canada stated.
Careful planning went into the process of moving the vessel along a 159-nautical mile route through the Douglas Channel from an initial point near Prince Rupert to the Kitimat terminal.
With joint venture backing from Shell, Petronas PetroChina, Mitsubishi Corporation and the Korea Gas Corp., the $40 billion project has been described as the “largest single private investment in the history of the country.”
If all goes to plan, the terminal expected to export 14 million tonnes of natural gas a year for an estimated value of $575 million annually for 40 years, according to the B.C. government. A proposed Phase 2 of the project would boost this export volume to 28 million tonnes annually.
(LNG photos of the Maran Gas Roxana at the Kitimat terminal and navigating through the Douglas Channel)