LNG Canada has started to cool down its liquefied natural gas plant in Kitimat, British Columbia, considered a final step before it begins to produce the superchilled gas, two people told Reuters.
LNG Canada is the country’s first LNG export facility and when completed is expected to produce 14 million metric tonnes per annum (MTPA) for export.
The company started on Tuesday to use refrigerants as part of the cooling process and tomorrow is expected to introduce natural gas into the plant, the people said.
Cooling an LNG plant before it begins production is an attempt to limit the amount of flaring of gas associated with the startup of the plant and to ensure that it is working according to specifications as the facility’s machinery expands and contracts with the introduction of natural gas.
On April 1 the Maran Gas Roxana arrived in Canada to deliver a cargo of LNG to the plant to be used in the cooldown.
The cooldown process should take up to three weeks, LNG Canada previously said.
Equipment testing is going well and the company remains on track to ship first cargoes by the middle of 2025, LNG Canada said on Tuesday.
Once the plant enters service, Canadian gas exports to the United States would likely decline, traders have said.
The plant gives Canadian energy firms another outlet for their fuel, facilitating sales to other countries. For now, the U.S. is the only outlet for Canadian gas.
Canada exported about 8.6 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) of gas via pipelines to the U.S. in 2024, up from 8.0 bcfd in 2023 and an average of 7.5 bcfd over the prior five years (2018-2022), according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. That compares with a record 10.4 bcfd in 2002. LNG Canada is a joint venture of Shell, Petronas, PetroChina, Mitsubishi Corporation and Kogas.
(Reporting by Curtis Williams in Houston; Editing by Andrea Ricci)