Canada's federal government today announced a C$200mn ($140mn) investment into the Woodfibre LNG terminal on the Pacific coast in British Columbia (BC).
The investment will expand the terminal's total offtake capacity to 2.5mn-2.6mn metric tonnes (t)/yr (333mn-347mn cf/d), up from 2.1mn t/yr, Natural Resources Canada said on Friday.
The spending will "maximize reliability, efficiency and production" and "enable exploration of a potential second phase of the project", the agency said. The project, targeting service in 2027, is permitted only for its first phase.
The project has grappled with rising costs since parent company Pacific Energy made its final investment decision in 2016. Canadian midstream firm Enbridge bought a 30pc stake in Woodfibre in 2022, with the remaining 70pc held by Pacific Energy. Enbridge estimated last year that its costs for Woodfibre would be $2.9bn, up from an original estimate of $1.5bn. Based on the equity breakdown, that implies the project's total costs are $9.7bn.
Woodfibre will power its operations by drawing hydroelectric power from the BC grid, which may reduce its cost-competitiveness against other terminals, notably on the US Gulf coast were gas-fired generation is used.
BP has binding offtake agreements for 1.95mn t/yr of the terminal's current offtake capacity, with the remaining 150,000 t/yr to be sold under a flexible offtake basis.
