Canadian Coastal Changes President as Work Starts
Coastal GasLink (CGL), the TransCanada subsidiary contracted to build the C$6.2bn ($4.7bn) pipeline that will deliver gas to the LNG Canada liquefaction terminal on BC’s northern coast, has installed a new president to direct the company during construction.
David Pfeiffer, who most recently was vice president, implementation for Coastal GasLink, took over as CGL president effective February 1. He replaces Rick Gateman, who remains with TransCanada as vice president, business development for non-regulated assets while taking on the additional role as president of the Prince Rupert Gas Transmission (PRGT) project.
In an email to NGW, Gateman said the transition was a planned move, as CGL moves from a project under development to a project under construction.
A 20-year veteran of the pipeline industry, Pfeiffer served on the TransCanada executive leadership team that directed major onshore and offshore projects in Mexico, including the Sur de Texas-Tuxpan project, prior to joining the CGL team.
Prior to joining TransCanada in 2016, he was senior vice president of Robert B Somerville Co, a Canadian infrastructure services company, served as an advisor to First Nations Limited Partnership in negotiations to advance a northern BC gas pipeline, was a senior project manager for Kinder Morgan and served as head of pipelines for Anglo-Dutch major Shell.
As president of PRGT, meanwhile, Gateman will continue to direct the re-purposing of the 900-km (559-mile) pipeline that was originally designed to feed the Pacific NorthWest LNG project near Prince Rupert, which Malaysia’s state-owned Petronas dropped in 2017, ahead of taking an equity position in the Shell-led LNG Canada project in Kitimat.
All permits from the BC Oil & Gas Commission remain valid, Gateman told NGW, and in December 2018 the project applied to the BC Environmental Assessment Office for a five-year extension of its environmental assessment certificate while it “continues to explore potential opportunities that would require transportation of natural gas to the Prince Rupert area.”