Shell seeks 25-year LNG export permit

Royal Dutch Shell and its three Asian partners have applied to Canada’s National Energy Board to export 24 million metric tons a year of liquefied natural gas over 25 years from British Columbia to Asia.

The license is equivalent to 3.4 billion cubic feet per day of gas production, about one-quarter of Canada’s total output in 2011.

Shell, with Korea Gas, Mitsubishi and PetroChina as partners, plans initially to build an export terminal on the British Columbia coast to handle about half the capacity being requested, with an “option to expand,” a company spokesman said.

He said the application “assures there are sufficient natural gas reserves in Canada to meet domestic needs and exports.”

Although Shell has declined to put a price tag on the project, TransCanada Chief Executive Officer Russ Girling — whose company has the rights to build a pipeline from British Columbia’s Liard play to the Pacific coast — pegged the project cost at C$12 billion, plus the C$4 billion cost of the pipeline.

—Gary Park