An LNG tanker is expected to arrive in Canada on April 1 to start cooling down LNG Canada’s plant in Kitimat, British Columbia, considered the final step before the plant begins production of the superchilled gas.
“The delivery is expected in early April and is critical to our safe start-up and commissioning process now underway, and to achieving our first cargo by the middle of 2025,” LNG Canada told Reuters on Monday.
The company is Canada’s first liquefied natural gas export facility and when complete is expected to export 14 million metric tonnes per annum (MTPA) of the superchilled gas.
Once LNG Canada enters service, Canadian gas exports to the U.S. will likely decline, traders said, as Canadian energy firms will have another outlet for their fuel and will sell more 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.
The cooldown period will take three to four weeks to complete, LNG Canada said. The tanker arriving next week is called Maran Gas Roxana.
LNG Canada is trying to limit the amount of flaring of natural gas associated with the startup of the plant and to ensure that the plant is working according to specifications as the facility’s machinery expands and contracts with the introduction of natural gas, a person familiar with the project told Reuters.
LNG Canada is a joint venture of Shell, Petronas, PetroChina, Mitsubishi Corporation and Kogas.
(Reporting by Curtis Williams in Houston and Scott Di Savino in New York; Editing by Leslie Adler)