For a decade, the story of North American LNG has been written almost entirely along the Gulf Coast, where a flood of liquefaction capacity stretches from Corpus Christi to Plaquemines Parish. But for the important and growing Asian gas market, the Gulf Coast is a long way away. A cargo from Louisiana bound for Tokyo has to squeeze through the Panama Canal or take the long way around the Cape of Good Hope. That means a voyage of three weeks or more, versus roughly 10-12 days from British Columbia or Baja California. The tide of West Coast gas projects is rising and there has been a flurry of announcements in the last couple of weeks. The biggest came on September 29, when LNG Canada announced a positive final investment decision to proceed with Phase 2 (orange diamond in map below, for more, see our blog, Beautiful Day). The expansion doubles the Kitimat facility's production capacity from 14 MMtpa (~1.8 Bcf/d) to 28 MMtpa (~3.6 Bcf/d), with commercial operations expected to begin in the early 2030s. The JV's ownership tells you where the molecules are headed. Shell's partners include Malaysia's PETRONAS (25%), China's PetroChina (15%), Japan's Mitsubishi Corporation (15%), and South Korea's KOGAS (5%).
And a second wave is filling in behind LNG Canada. Woodfibre LNG near Squamish is a 2.1-MMtpa (~285 MMcf/d) facility targeting in-service in late 2027, and it was reported in April that the project is looking to double or triple in size (teal striped diamond). Cedar LNG, the Haisla/Pembina floating LNG project, remains on track for a late-2028 startup (pink striped diamond). Once fully operational, it would add roughly 3.3 MMtpa (~450 MMcf/d) of feed gas demand pulling on WCSB supply via Coastal GasLink (yellow line). Next up for FID is Ksi Lisims (purple checkered diamond). The floating LNG project north of Prince Rupert recently signed another tentative supply deal ahead of a final investment decision expected by the end of 2026, and it now has tentative sales deals for 9 MMtpa of its projected 12 MMtpa. We wrote a detailed update on the Canadian projects recently in Shut Up and Drive.
