Steelhead Files Kwispaa LNG Project Description
Steelhead LNG and Huu-ay-aht First Nations said October 17 they had filed the project description for their 24mn metric tons/year Kwispaa LNG project on Vancouver Island.
The project description, filed with the BC Environmental Assessment Office (EAO) and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency (CEAA), provides a comprehensive overview of Kwispaa LNG, and represents the culmination of several years of engagement and planning, the results of which have been incorporated in ongoing environmental studies and engineering work. The two phases of Kwispaa, each rated at 12mn mt/yr, are expected to cost about C$10bn each, according to the project description.
The filing is the latest milestone for the project, following on a contract awarded last month to Hyundai Heavy Industries of Korea for the front-end engineering and design of Kwispaa LNG’s at-shore LNG production hulls. Earlier this year, Hyundai was nominated to fabricate the hulls, expected to cost some $500mn.
Kwispaa LNG is being developed through a co-management relationship between Steelhead and Huu-ay-aht First Nations. Together, the two have been conducting environmental studies and engaging with First Nations and local communities impacted by the project.
“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. “The project description that we have submitted to regulators reflects our shared commitment with Huu-ay-aht First Nations to provide Canadian natural gas to global markets in a way that generates long-lasting benefits to First Nations, local communities, BC, and Canada.”
The EAO and the CEAA will now work with Kwispaa LNG to establish the scope of the environmental assessment of the project. Consultations so far with First Nations and communities have already identified areas of particular interest, such as marine shipping, which will be a focus of environmental studies.
Steelhead LNG president Victor Ojeda told the Calgary Energy Roundtable October 10 that the filings were pending.
“You will actually see us entering the regulatory process in BC in the coming days,” he said, noting that FID for Kwispaa is still about two years away.
The timeline for Kwispaa is based, in part, on market dynamics, he noted.
“The market has never been in a rush to buy,” Ojeda said. “It’s a cyclical business, the LNG business, and I think I can fairly say that there is a consensus in the industry that around the middle of the next decade you have it moving from long LNG to short LNG. We have worked our timelines back from that. A lot of people have filled their boots with Gulf of Mexico gas and I think there is an increasing view, in north Asia in particular, that the West Coast is good.”