Malaysian energy company Petronas has no plans to leave Canada, the CEO of its Canadian subsidiary said on Tuesday, adding the company is committed to decades of LNG exports off the country’s West Coast.
“The rumor that Petronas is exiting Canada is absolutely not true,” said Petronas Canada CEO Mark Fitzgerald, on the sidelines of an energy conference in Calgary. Bloomberg reported last week that Petronas was considering a sale of its Canadian company, formerly known as Progress Energy Resources Corp. Malaysian media have also reported Petronas as saying it needed to “right-size” its workforce to ensure the company’s survival in the coming decades. LNG Canada, the country’s first liquefied natural gas export facility, is a joint venture of Shell Canada, Petronas, PetroChina, Mitsubishi Corporation and Kogas. It is expected to ship its first cargoes by the middle of 2025. The partners are exploring a possible expansion, which could include building two additional LNG trains that would double the plant’s capacity to 28 million tonnes of LNG per year. Shell Canada President Stastia West said on Tuesday at the conference that the company’s decision on whether to proceed with the expansion will depend on its overall competitiveness and affordability, as well as what other potential projects are in Shell’s portfolio at the time. Speaking on a conference panel, Fitzgerald said Canadian West Coast LNG, with its access to cheap natural gas from Western Canada as well as to Pacific export markets, competes well against any projects being developed in the U.S. He said in recent years investors have been deterred by what they perceived to be an unfriendly regulatory environment in Canada. New Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who won a minority government in April, has pledged to shorten permitting times by identifying and fast-tracking projects of national interest aimed at helping Canada become what he calls a conventional and clean energy superpower. Fitzgerald said Canada needs to develop a national LNG and natural gas strategy, and that investment will flow quickly into the country if its government makes good on a pledge to reduce permitting times.
(Reporting by Amanda Stephenson in Calgary; Writing by Liz Hampton in Denver; Editing by Rod Nickel)