Vancouver: Canada needs to speed up the approval process for LNG terminals if it is to remain competitive in the field, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) warned on Wednesday.
Without more of the specialized terminals to send out the country’s LNG supply to the world market, the industry’s output will be damaged, says the CAPP.
The country has 19 LNG terminals proposed for its Pacific coast aimed at meeting demand from Asia, but provincial and federal regulatory approval have been slow to come by.
More than a dozen LNG terminal projects are proposed in British Columbia alone, but analysts expect only a few to actually be constructed.
Without expedited readiness of the west coast LNG terminals CAPP says Canadian production could be expected to decline steadily over the next decade from its current level of 14.5 bcf/d and then remain flat at 13 bcf/d until at least 2030.
It would mean missing out on huge amounts of potential business both for the fuel producers and the shipping lines that deliver it in its liquid form.
