Earlier this week, Ksi Lisims LNG announced that they had secured binding contracts for over half of the planned production for a proposed floating LNG liquefaction facility, that would be located North of Prince Rupert.
We recently got the chance to speak with Rebecca Scott, the Senior Director of Communications for Western LNG, one of the partners on the project, who explained more details about the project, starting with what each partner’s role on the project is;
“There are three partners and each partner owns a specific part of the project. The Nisga’a Nation owns their treaty land, where the project will be set. Western LNG will own the floating technology and Rockies LNG owns the Natural Gas Resource.”
Scott then talked about the amount of as well as the kind of jobs that the project would create, in addition to who they would prioritize hiring;
“Hiring preference for all of our projects goes locally first, so Terrace residents and citizens get first crack at jobs. They need to be qualified so we’re encouraging everyone who lives in the region to make sure that they’re qualified and get training if they want to work on these projects. That training is available now.”
“In terms of the numbers, there’ll be thousands of jobs during construction, we expect about 800 people working on Ksi Lisims LNG at peak construction. Another almost 5,000 will be working on the pipeline at peak construction and another 300 working on the transmission line.”
“I think the really important and transformational element of the jobs opportunity is for operations. This is a project that will operate for 40 years and will have a permanent workforce of 250 individuals, so it’s 250 jobs for people who live in the Northwest, who want to build a career and a life here. It’ll be one of the largest employers in the Northwest.”
After that, Scott explained how the process of producing LNG at the facility would work, noting how it would be different;
“It’s a 12 million tonnes per year project, so it’s a bit smaller than LNG Canada for comparison. But we’re going about it in a very different way than folks in the Northwest might be used to. We’re going to build all of our technology on floating platforms, it won’t be on land”.
“That means we’ll be able to place this technology in a fairly remote location. People who work at the site will live there and commute to their homes in Terrace. We have a very innovative model of putting 6 million tonnes per year on each of the two floating platforms. This is quite new and will be by far the largest floating LNG export facility on the planet.”
Scott would also go onto tout how they’ve learned from other projects who have gone through Northern BC and say that they believe can build the project in a way that contributes to a stronger economic future for Canada.