Enbridge keen to revive natural-gas pipeline plans in northern B.C.

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Enbridge Inc. ENB-T is keen to revive a natural-gas pipeline project in a bid to supply a proposed export facility in northern British Columbia, says the company’s chief executive officer.

The Westcoast Connector Gas Transmission pipeline is shaping up to be a promising project over the long term, said Greg Ebel, who took over as Enbridge CEO from the retiring Al Monaco at the start of 2023.

The pipeline route would run from northeast B.C. to near a planned export terminal, named Ksi Lisims LNG, for producing liquefied natural gas on the province’s North Coast. Ksi Lisims is backed by the Nisga’a Nation, Western LNG and a group of natural-gas producers called Rockies LNG.

Climate activists say the focus should be on renewable energy, but Mr. Ebel argues that LNG from Canada could play a crucial role as a transition fuel to help displace higher-carbon thermal coal currently being used for electricity generation in Asia.

“It’s incumbent upon Canadians to actually look beyond just their own backyard, to think what differences we can make in the world,” he said in an interview.

Enbridge applied to the B.C. Environmental Assessment Office (BCEAO) last December to extend Westcoast Connector’s environmental assessment certificate by five years, proposing a new expiry date of Nov. 25, 2029. But Enbridge said on Tuesday that it decided to not pursue that formal extension request until taking more time to hold consultations with Indigenous groups and commercial partners.

Houston-based Spectra Energy Corp. originally proposed the Westcoast Connector pipeline in hopes of supplying BG Group PLC’s planned terminal for exporting LNG from Ridley Island, located near Prince Rupert in northwest B.C. “That’s a pipeline project that, at Spectra, we worked with for a long time to actually get it permitted,” Mr. Ebel said.

Mr. Ebel, who was CEO of Spectra from 2009 to 2017, served as Enbridge’s chair for nearly six years after the Calgary-based energy infrastructure company acquired Spectra in 2017.

Enbridge now envisages Westcoast Connector having a revised route that would instead end at Wil Milit on Pearse Island, the site of the planned export facility to be operated by Ksi Lisims.

“It’s still early days,” Mr. Ebel said. “We’ve got some proposals to extend the permits and I would hope those are realized in due course and positively.”

After Shell PLC’s RYDAF acquisition of BG Group in 2016, Shell decided to focus on the LNG Canada joint venture in Kitimat, B.C., and would later scrap plans for the Ridley Island export project, called Prince Rupert LNG.

Westcoast Connector is one of two pipeline options being considered by Ksi Lisims. The other pipeline possibility is TC Energy Corp.’s proposed Prince Rupert Gas Transmission (PRGT). A portion of the routes for Westcoast Connector and PRGT would cross the Gitxsan Nation’s unceded traditional territory.

Ksi Lisims plans to use two floating facilities to produce LNG, with hydroelectricity powering motors for compressors in the liquefaction process. The project would then deploy other vessels to export LNG to Asia, starting in late 2027.

While the design of the revised Westcoast Connector will be shorter than originally planned, it would still be longer than the contentious Coastal GasLink pipeline project to be operated by TC Energy Corp TRP-T.

Coastal GasLink will be supplying the Shell-led LNG Canada joint venture in Kitimat, where exports of natural gas in liquid form to Asia are slated to begin in 2025.

LNG Canada is the only LNG export project under construction so far in the country. If Ksi Lisims gets built, it would be Canada’s second-largest LNG export facility.

The next LNG project in line to begin construction in Canada is Woodfibre LNG, which plans to start building its export terminal in September at an industrial site near Squamish, B.C., 65 kilometres north of Vancouver.

Enbridge acquired a 30-per-cent stake last year in Woodfibre, while the remaining 70 per cent is held by Pacific Energy Corp. Ltd.

Woodfibre retained FortisBC to build a new pipeline in the Vancouver region to supply natural gas for the Squamish-area site.

Mr. Ebel will be one of the speakers at an international LNG conference to be held July 10-13 in Vancouver. He will appear on an industry panel with the topic titled Challenges of a Turbulent Energy Transition.

The Pembina Institute, a clean energy think tank, and environmental groups such as the David Suzuki Foundation have issued climate warnings about looming LNG exports from B.C.

They say fossil fuels such as LNG are warming the planet’s climate with increased emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs).

Jan Gorski, director of the Pembina Institute’s oil and gas program, said that besides upstream emissions from fracking for natural gas, the carbon footprint from export terminals also undermines the LNG industry’s claims of major advantages over coal.

“These LNG projects present a challenge because of the amount of electricity required,” Mr. Gorski said in an interview. “They present a challenge to both the province’s climate targets, but also to growth of the development of clean energy projects.”

B.C. environmentalist Mike Sawyer wrote to the BCEAO in March to register his concern over Westcoast Connector. “There is considerable concern about the ability of British Columbia to meet its GHG emission targets,” he said in his letter to the BCEAO and the B.C. Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy.

Mr. Sawyer criticized Westcoast Connector, portraying it as “essentially a ghost project that has no committed LNG project to service.”

Aside from Ksi Lisims, Woodfibre and LNG Canada, two other proponents of exports using tankers remain active in B.C: Cedar LNG in Kitimat and FortisBC’s expansion plans at Tilbury LNG in Delta, B.C.

Ksi Lisims and Tilbury are undergoing regulatory reviews to obtain environmental approvals. They will be required to submit what B.C.’s NDP government calls credible plans to reach net-zero emissions of GHGs by 2030, as outlined in the province’s Energy Action Framework announced in March.

Woodfibre, Cedar and LNG Canada already have their environmental assessment certificates.