Steelhead LNG has submitted a project description for its proposed Kwispaa LNG facility in western Canada to the British Columbia Environmental Assessment Office (EAO) and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency (CEAA). The filings mark the next phase in development for the project, a partnership between Steelhead and Huu-ay-aht First Nations.
Kwispaa LNG is a proposed export facility located at Sarita Bay on Vancouver Island, on land owned by the Huu-ay-aht First Nations. Front-end engineering and design work is expected to begin in early 2019. A final investment decision (FID) on the project is expected in 2020, and the first phase of production is expected to begin by the end of 2024. Steelhead said it will have a 12-mtpa [metric tonnes per annum] capacity upon startup, with the ability to expand to 24 mtpa in the future.
Steelhead and Huu-ay-aht will co-manage the facility. Companies have been invited to bid for engineering and construction contracts for the project’s topsides, marine facilities, pre-treatment, and onshore plant facilities. Last month, Steelhead and Huu-ay-aht signed a contract with Hyundai Heavy Industries for the engineering and design of two at-shore terminal hulls, each of which would cost approximately $500 million and contain five tanks that could store 280,000 m3 of LNG.
“From the beginning, we have believed in developing LNG projects in Canada that emphasize relationships with First Nations and respect their role as stewards of the environment,” Steelhead LNG CEO Nigel Kuzemko said in a statement.
The filings come on the heels of Shell’s FID for Canada’s first LNG plant, which is also scheduled to begin production in the mid-2020s. They will allow the British Columbia EAO and the CEAA to work with Kwispaa LNG to envelope the scope of the environmental assessment of the project. Steelhead said that “extensive First Nations and community engagement” has already identified areas of particular interest, such as marine shipping, that will be a focus of the environmental studies.
The project includes 620 miles of pipelines to transport natural gas from northeast British Columbia and Alberta.