{"id":1169474,"date":"2020-03-04T15:53:19","date_gmt":"2020-03-04T21:53:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mining.com\/?p=1016180"},"modified":"2020-03-04T15:53:19","modified_gmt":"2020-03-04T21:53:19","slug":"3bn-expansion-planned-at-british-columbia-lng-plant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/?p=1169474","title":{"rendered":"$3bn expansion planned at British Columbia LNG plant"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>FortisBC is still putting the finishing touches on a $400 million expansion of its Tilbury Island LNG plant in British Columbia, but is already pushing ahead with a second phase expansion.<\/p>\n<div class='d-flex justify-content-center d-xs-block d-sm-block d-md-none'>\n<div id='div-gpt-ad-1561499308230-0'><script>googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1561499308230-0');});<\/script><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>When complete, the $3 billion expansion would mean the Tilbury Island plant would produce more LNG than the Woodfibre LNG plant in Squamish.<\/p>\n<p>The second phase expansion proposal has just entered the BC Environmental Assessment Office\u2019s review process with the filing of a project description \u2013 a process that FortisBC expects will take two years to complete. <\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote alignright\">\n<blockquote>\n<p> Should phase two be approved and sanctioned, it would bring the Tilbury Island plant\u2019s capacity up to 3.5 MTPA  <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p>It may also be subject to the federal government\u2019s new Impact Assessment Act, which a number of business and industry groups have warned could be even more onerous, costly and lengthy than the Environmental Assessment Act that it replaced. B.C. has also made changes to its provincial Environmental Assessment Act. Both federal and provincial acts have increased the role of indigenous people in the environmental review process.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe key thing for us is that we\u2019re into the new environmental process, so that will be interesting to see how that plays out,\u201d said Doug Stout, FortisBC\u2019s vice president of marketing and external relations.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, FortisBC\u2019s partner in the Tilbury marine jetty project \u2013 WesPac Midstream \u2013 is nearing the end of an environmental review for a new marine jetty it plans to build at Tilbury Island for a new marine bunkering facility.<\/p>\n<p>FortisBC hopes to see the jetty\u2019s approval sometime this summer, with a completion date of 2022. Should the phase two expansion be approved, it\u2019s not expected to be complete until 2028.<\/p>\n<p>If the expansion is approved, it might require an expansion of the Enbridge Inc. (TSX:ENB) natural gas pipeline system that supplies FortisBC with its natural gas.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo finish out phase one, we think there\u2019s capacity there on the system,\u201d Stout said. \u201cFor phase two, we\u2019d need some expanded gas transportation capacity through Enbridge.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He said that expansion could be in the form of twinning some sections of the pipeline and additional compression.<\/p>\n<p>FortisBC\u2019s LNG plant at Tilbury Island historically was used to produce and store liquefied natural gas as a backup to meet peak demand and to address pipeline outages.<\/p>\n<p>But FortisBC has also been capitalizing on the growing demand, both domestic and foreign, for LNG in transportation, both in trucking and shipping, by increasing the Tilbury Island plant&#8217;s production capacity.<\/p>\n<p>Domestically, a number of trucking fleets have already converted from diesel to compressed or liquefied natural gas. So have a number of ferries operated by Seaspan and BC Ferries.<\/p>\n<p>Currently BC Ferries has five vessels operating on LNG and Seaspan has two, with two more LNG vessels on order, Stout said. FortisBC forecasts that the demand for LNG for marine bunkering could be 1 MTPA by 2030.<\/p>\n<p>Private operators have also been developing small-scale LNG export opportunities. These exporters are using ISO containers, which can be put on container ships, and shipping them to China.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere is a component that could be for export,\u201d Stout said. \u201cThat could be either to ISO container market or bulk shipping.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The first phase of the Tilbury Island LNG plant\u2019s expansion isn\u2019t technically done yet. FortisBC plans to bring the Tilbury Island plant\u2019s production up from 0.25 million tonnes per annum to (MTPA) to 1 MTPA. This requires some additional liquefaction capacity and additional gas lines.<\/p>\n<p>Should phase two be approved and sanctioned, it would bring the Tilbury Island plant\u2019s capacity up to 3.5 MTPA. That is 1.4 MPTA more than the Woodfibre LNG plant would produce in Squamish.<\/p>\n<p>The expansion plan includes increasing storage capacity. The need for more storage was underscored in 2018 when the Enbridge natural gas pipeline that supplies the Lower Mainland and Washington with natural gas state ruptured, resulting in shortages and rationing.<\/p>\n<p><em>(This article first appeared in <a href=\"https:\/\/biv.com\/\"  rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"Business in Vancouver (opens in a new tab)\">Business in Vancouver<\/a>)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The second phase expansion proposal has just entered the BC Environmental Assessment Office&rsquo;s review process.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1035,369],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1169474"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1169474"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1169474\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1169475,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1169474\/revisions\/1169475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1169474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1169474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1169474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}