By Jose ElÃas RodrÃguez
MADRID, Dec 2 (Reuters) - Spanish oil company Repsol is seeking partners to invest $4 billion to exportnatural gas from North America to Europe, which is looking tocut its dependence on supplies from Russia, two sources familiarwith the matter said.
Repsol aims to build the plant with a planned annualcapacity of 5 million metric tonnes of liquid natural gas (LNG)at its Canaport terminal on the east coast of Canada in NewBrunswick to meet Europe's growing demands for cheap anddependable gas, one of the sources said on Tuesday.
The new plant would ship shale gas from the United States,the sources said, without giving further details.
"The idea is to take advantage of the Canaport site toexport gas to Europe at a time when it is looking for safer andmore competitive supply sources," said the source, adding thatRepsol would be a minority partner.
"This will only be done if there are partners who want totake on the bulk of the investment," said the source who isinvolved in the project.
Repsol said it has taken steps to study the viability of theproject, but did not give further details.
Canada wants to become a major exporter of natural gas andcrude oil to challenge the more established industry in the Gulfof Mexico in the United States.
British Columbia on Canada's west coast has cut taxes forLNG to encourage oil companies, such as Petronas, Shell andChevron, to build capacity to ship Canadian gas to Asianmarkets.
The project may attract large European utility companiesinterested in diversifying away from Russia, where tensions withMoscow and its conflict with Ukraine have heightened concernsabout the security of energy supplies to Europe.
The EU relies on Russia for about a third of its oil and gasand some 40 percent of that as is shipped through Ukraine.
Repsol owns 75 percent of Canaport and Canada's Irving Oil25 percent. Irving Oil has said Canaport is the closest NorthAmerican port to Europe, India and South America.
The plant was built to turn LNG received by tanker back intoits gaseous form and sends the gas by pipeline into Canadian andU.S. markets, but the shale boom in the United States has meantit is now underused.
Repsol has written down a total of 1.4 billion euros ($1.74billion) against the value of the plant, where production fell40 percent in 2013 from a year earlier as the United Statesreduced its natural gas imports.(1 US dollar = 0.8043 euro) (Reporting by Jose Elias Rodriguez; Writing by Tracy Rucinski;Editing by Louise Heavens)
