Quebec LNG proponents grapple with community fears

Gary Park

Partners in a proposed C$700 million liquefied natural gas project on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River in Quebec are at the tricky stage of dealing with the safety fears of local residents.

Gaz Metro, Gaz de France and Enbridge are faced with the same terrorist-dominated worries that have shaped planning for LNG facilities in the United States.

The Rabaska LNG project would receive 500 million cubic feet of gas per day from about 60 tanker loads a year.

The consortium is weighing one site that is just over one mile from a community of 1,000 people against another that is 12 miles away from a suburb of about 100,000.

To ease some of the concerns, the partners are proposing to use double-hulled LNG tankers, install gas-monitoring and shut-down systems on shore and in the terminal and construct steel-alloy storage tanks with concrete shells to hold the LNG.

They expect the regulatory phase will extend over three years, although construction could start in early 2006 with a projected in-service date of late 2008.