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Irving Oil prepared to lead LNG charge in Canada Firm receives regulatory green light from Canadian, New Brunswick governments Gary Park Petroleum News Calgary Correspondent
Irving Oil, part of a giant privately held industrial conglomerate, figures it has stolen a march on its rivals to build Canada’s first liquefied natural gas plant.
It received a regulatory green light from the Canadian and New Brunswick governments Aug. 6 to proceed with a C$750 million facility in the deepwater Irving Canaport in New Brunswick just 65 miles from the U.S. border.
The project has a targeted in-service date of 2007 for three 5.67 million cubic foot LNG tanks, with a throughput capacity of 1 billion cubic feet per day.
The approvals came from New Brunswick’s Environment Department, Environment Canada and Fisheries and Oceans Canada under the federal Canadian Environmental Assessment Act.
LNG would arrive at the terminal by tanker, where it would be re-gasified before delivery to the northeastern United States.
Kenneth Irving, who runs the family business, said in a statement that LNG is the next building block in a process that started 45 years ago when Irving built a refinery at the Canaport location.
“Our goal is to continue to anticipate and meet the growing energy needs of our customers and to do so early and for the long term,” he said, noting that the company is focused on “long-term relationships and value creation” in its U.S. export markets. Three terminals proposed in Nova Scotia In neighboring Nova Scotia three other proposed LNG receiving terminals are at various stages of development — a C$500 million project by privately owned Access Northeast Energy, which is aiming for a 2007 start-up, while Statia Terminals and Keltic Petrochemicals, both of Nova Scotia, have floated separate plans.
Nova Scotia Energy Minister Cecil Clarke said his government should soon complete a regulatory review of those LNG proposals.
He is counting on as much enthusiasm for LNG in Nova Scotia as New Brunswick, believing that competition between the two provinces would be healthy.
For Irving, there was no doubt that being first matters. “We’re the first to get the green light ... this is a major milestone,” said an Irving spokesman.
He said Irving entered the field three years ago because of strong indications that gas supply was lagging behind North American demand.
“We’re in a number of discussions with LNG producers — there have been a number of interested parties,” he told the Halifax Chronicle Herald, although he declined to identify the likely supply sources. West Coast, Quebec terminals also proposed Other LNG proposals are also moving forward across Canada.
WestPac Terminals and Galveston LNG are both eying terminals on the British Columbia coast, at the deepwater ports of Prince Rupert and Kitimat, respectively.
WestPac plans a facility to handle 300 million cubic feet per day, while Galveston is working on plans for a C$300 million terminal to handle 340 million cubic feet per day. Neither would start operations before 2008.
Quebec utility Gaz Metropolitain, Enbridge and Gaz de France are partners in a possible C$700 million LNG terminal in the Beaumont, Quebec, area that could process 500 million cubic feet per day and start deliveries in 2008.
The plant would be across the St. Lawrence River from New York state and could connect to pipelines in the U.S. Northeast.
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