Shell forecasts LNG shortage, raising potential that $40-billion B.C. project will proceed

by Charlie Smith

The Georgia Straight

One of the world’s largest fossil-fuel companies sees potential for a global shortage of liquefied natural gas by the mid 2020s.

And that that has raised hopes in B.C.’s business community and fears among environmentalists that a proposed LNG Canada project in Kitimat could be approved later this year.

LNG Canada says it would cost about $40 billion, including a new gas pipeline and upstream natural-gas assets to provide fuel for the facility.

Shell Canada Energy has a 50 percent stake in LNG Canada, with the remainder held by PetroChina, Korea Gas Corporation, and Mitsubishi.

Today, Shell Canada’s parent company, Shell, stated that the LNG market “has continued to defy expectations of many market observers, with demand growing by 29 million tonnes to 293 million tonnes in 2017”.

Leading the way is Japan, with China passing South Korea to become the second-largest LNG importer last year.

“In Asia alone, demand rose by 17 million tonnes,” Shell executive Maarten Wetselaar said in the news release. “That’s nearly as much as Indonesia, the world’s fifth-largest LNG exporter, produced in 2017.”

B.C. premier John Horgan was recently in China on a trade mission to promote the sale of LNG.

According to the LNG Canada website, Shell operates about 20 percent of the LNG vessels in the world and has projects, including those under construction, in 10 countries.

The company has claimed that its proposed project “will have one of the lowest” greenhouse-gas-emission footprints of any LNG facility in the world.

The parent company, Shell, maintained in today’s news release that growing use of LNG in China is resulting in fuel-switching from much dirtier coal.