Tourmaline-Backed LNG Group Files for Environmental Permits

A group of Canada’s largest natural gas producers including Tourmaline Oil Corp. and Ovintiv Inc. is pushing forward with a gas-export project called Ksi Lisims LNG and has filed for environmental approval for the 12 million-metric-ton-a-year facility on the West Coast.

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The facility would be located near British Columbia’s border with Alaska and would prepare super-chilled gas for export by tanker to markets in Asia, according to the application filed with the coastal province’s government. The project is backed by the indigenous Nisga’a Nation, Houston-based Western LNG and Rockies LNG Partners, which includes nine Canadian gas producers, including Tourmaline, Birchcliff Energy Ltd. and Paramount Resources Ltd.

The Rockies group, which accounts for a third of Canada’s natural gas output, began work on the project after other liquefied natural gas proposals in the region were scrapped, including the Pacific NorthWest LNG project near Prince Rupert, led by Malaysia’s Petroliam Nasional Bhd. Frustrated by delays to accessing overseas markets, some Canadian gas producers have also started shipping their gas from Western Canada all the way to LNG facilities on the US Gulf Coast.

“These are large projects, and it takes a lot of shoulders behind it to get it to the finish line,” Rockies LNG President Charlotte Raggett said of the effort for multiple producers to work together. Rockies LNG has offices inside Birchcliff Energy’s headquarters in Calgary.

Ksi Lisims now joins a handful of other LNG projects at various stages of development in British Columbia, with demand for the fuel surging as nations seek to replace Russian pipeline gas supplies after its invasion of Ukraine.

The Shell Plc-backed LNG Canada project, which would produce 14 million metric tons a year, is under construction and scheduled for completion by mid decade. Work has moved ahead on Woodfibre LNG, a project backed by Indonesian tycoon Sukanto Tanoto, and Pembina Pipeline Corp.’s proposed Cedar LNG received a key environmental permit earlier this year.

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