By Sarah McFarlane
LONDON, March 25 (Reuters) - Shell expects only afraction of liquefied natural gas (LNG) export projects alreadyapproved by the Canadian government to go ahead in the nextdecade, an executive said on Wednesday.
Canada has the potential to become one of the world's topLNG exporters, but projects have yet to begin construction, asroughly 110 million tonnes of government-approved exportcapacity awaits final investment decisions.
"At Shell we assume that only 15 to 20 percent of theapproved projects will materialise by 2025," Markus Hector,Shell's general manager of global LNG said.
Speaking at a gas sector event hosted by the High Commissionof Canada in London, Hector said that the low forecast successrate was partly due to the scale of the infrastructure projectsand the competition for people with the skills to build them.
Sinking oil and gas prices have put the brakes on thedevelopment of the LNG industry, with planned U.S. projectsbeing delayed or even scrapped altogether.
Shell is the lead partner in a consortium planning the LNGCanada facility on British Columbia's northern coast and is notexpected to make a final investment decision until at least2016.
"We are progressing the project, it's in the developmentphase, we don't have any specific impact from commodity priceson the development of the project," Hector said.
In response to the collapse in prices, oil and gas companieshave made drastic cuts to budgets, idled drilling rigs and insome cases cut jobs. Earlier this year Shell said it wouldreduce its spending over the next three years by $15 billion.
(Reporting by Sarah McFarlane; Editing by Ruth Pitchford)
