LNG

Canadian company Énergir and the Québec Port Authority have completed their 100th liquified natural gas re-fuelling operation as the French-speaking province embraces maritime bunkering, though rejects LNG production for export.

“This major achievement is a testament to both companies’ leadership to supply the maritime industry in LNG, and to their expertise in bunkering operations in Canada,” said Énergir, the main gas distribution company in the province.

The bunkering takes place in or around the port of Québec City, which sits on the Saint Lawrence River and is the oldest Canadian port and the second-largest after Montreal.

The LNG bunkering station, implemented by Énergir’s subsidiary, Gaz Métro Transport Solutions in 2018, is available to all shipowners passing through.

“These 100 LNG bunkers completed at the Port of Québec have supplied five vessels owned by Desgagnés, a Québec shipowner that has shown great vision in adopting LNG as a marine fuel and who also actively participated in the implementation of the bunkering system,” said Énergir.

The Desgagnés fleet includes cargo shipping, ferries and tankers with more LNG-powered vessels being added in the future.

Énergir noted that LNG as a maritime fuel was expanding in North. America to meet new emissions standards in ports.

“This solution is one of the concrete actions included in the Port of Québec’s Sustainable Development Action Plan, which aims to develop maritime trade by adopting environmentally friendly practices while favoring transitional energy,” added Énergir.

“Being one of the best sources of energy available to shipowners on the market, LNG is experiencing significant growth and is recognized elsewhere in the world, particularly in Europe,” stated the company.

Énergir is also present in the US where it generates electricity from renewable sources, while serving as the leading electricity distributor and the sole natural gas supplier in the northeast US state of Vermont.

The Canadian Woodfibre LNG project, a mid-scale venture being developed by the Asia-based company Pacific Oil and Gas Ltd, a subsidiary of Royal Golden Eagle (RGE) group, has signed a second supply agreement with UK major BP.

The Woodfibre project said its latest Sales and Purchase Agreement (SPA) was with BP Gas Marketing for the delivery of 750,000 tonnes of LNG on a free on board (FOB) basis over 15 years.

This SPA will increase BP’s total LNG off-take to 1.5 million tonnes per annum, over 70 percent of Woodfibre LNG’s future annual production.

The Woodfibre plant is sited on a brownfield site of a former pulp mill, about 7 kilometre from the town of Squamish and 70km northeast of Vancouver in the province of British Columbia.

It was granted a construction permit back in July 2019 by the provincial authorities to proceed with building, though the developers have so far declined to take a final investment decision.

The plant when completed will comprise a facility with output of around 2.1 MTPA of LNG and storage tanks with 250,000 cubic metres of capacity.

“Forward-looking companies like BP are turning to projects like ours for sustainable, stable gas that will supply a clean energy mix,” said Ratnesh Bedi, Pacific Oil & Gas President.

“We look forward to working with BP to deliver Canadian natural gas from one of the lowest carbon-footprint LNG facilities in the world,” added Bedi.

Woodfibre has had close cooperation with the native North American Squamish First Nation in the area of the proposed plant.

In late 2020, the BC Environmental Assessment Office also granted local utility and infrastructure company FortisBC a five-year extension to its environmental certificate for a new 47-kilometre pipeline that will supply natural gas to the Woodfibre facility.

In the meantime, Woodfibre has been working on the remediation of its site

Woodfibre has said it could make an investment decision this year to put the project on track to start commercial operations in 2025.

The only other LNG export project moving forward in Canada is also in British Columbia, the LNG Canada project led by Royal Dutch Shell and with mainly Asian joint investors.

Shell’s partners in the plant currently under construction near the town of Kitimat are PetroChina, Mitsubishi Corp. of Japan, Petronas of Malaysia and Korea Gas Corp.

However, LNG Canada is on a larger scale than Woodfibre with around 20 MTPA of output expected in the first phase of development using some of the massive untapped natural gas resources in the northeast of BC province. 

Canadian shipping line, British Columbia Ferries, has awarded another newbuild contract to the Polish Remontowa Shipbuilding company in the Baltic port of Gdansk for a liquefied natural gas-powered vessel.

Canada has started the regulatory process for a liquefied natural gas jetty expansion project being undertaken at the existing Tilbury Island plant of utility FortisBC in British Columbia that will lead to small-scale LNG exports to Asia and a West Coast LNG bunkering hub.

Spanish energy company Repsol has completed its largest LNG bunkering operation by refueling a Canadian ship at the Cartagena import terminal in southeast Spain with 11 truckloads of fuel.