Woodfibre LNG greenlights McDermott to move towards construction start

The Canadian Woodfibre LNG project has issued a notice to proceed to its construction contractor U.S. offshore engineering firm McDermott.

This notice to proceed is an instruction from Woodfibre LNG to McDermott to start the work in order to move the project toward major construction start in 2023.

Powered by renewable hydroelectricity, Woodfibre LNG claims it will be the lowest-emission LNG export facility in the world. When shipped to Asia where it will replace coal-fired electricity, the LNG will reduce 3.5 million tonnes of CO2 per year. This is equivalent to 5 per cent of British Columbia’s annual emissions.

Woodfibre LNG expects to reach substantial completion in 2027.

The project takes place west-southwest of Squamish, British Columbia. It involves the construction and operation of an LNG export facility on the previous pulp mill site. The facility would have a storage capacity of 250,000 cubic metres and would produce and export up to 2.1 million tonnes of LNG annually.

Woodfibre LNG is a Canadian subsidiary of Pacific Energy based in Singapore. The Canadian and B.C. governments and the Squamish Nation approved and regulated it. Moreover, it is the first industrial project in Canada to recognize Indigenous people as a full project regulator.

Pacific Energy also approved the partial financing of the project for 2022. The budget amounts to $500 million.

The project has two offtake agreements signed with BP, therefore over 70 per cent of Woodfibre’s annual throughput has already been sold.