By Julie Gordon
VANCOUVER, July 8 (Reuters) - A closely held Canadiancompany has waded into British Columbia's crowded liquefiednatural gas (LNG) export fray with a plan to build a $30 billionterminal on Vancouver Island.
Steelhead LNG said on Tuesday it had applied to Canadianregulators for permission to export up to 30 million tonnes ofLNG a year for 25 years, joining a list of fourteen companiesvying to build projects in the Pacific Coast province.
The National Energy Board has already approved exportlicenses for nine projects in British Columbia. With Steelhead,it has five more under review, as global and domestic companiesscramble to build the facilities needed to ship cheap Canadiangas to energy-hungry Asian markets.
"It is a competitive market. If you look at where we are,we're certainly not the first to arrive," said Steelhead Chief Executive Officer Nigel Kuzemko. "But we're an independent,Canadian business, and as such we don't have any of the hang-upssome of the super majors might have."
Many of the front-runners in the race to develop Canada'sLNG industry are majors like Royal Dutch Shell Plc andChevron Corp, who are concurrently developing rivalprojects in other parts of the world.
Steelhead, which is focused on one project, is backed byKERN Partners, a Calgary-based private equity firm with C$1.1billion ($1.03 billion) under management that looks forlong-term investment opportunities in Canada's energy sector.
Steelhead's export terminal, which would be designed toproduce 24 million tonnes of LNG a year, would be built inAnacla, a remote village about 200 kms (125 miles) northwest ofVictoria on Vancouver Island.
Steelhead is working closely with the local Aboriginalcommunity to develop the project, which will also require theconstruction of a lengthy pipeline to carry the gas from fieldsin northern British Columbia and Alberta.
The Vancouver-based company does not own gas properties butplans to operate the LNG plant on a type of tolling model -working with producers to secure gas, converting it for theminto LNG and then shipping it to final customers.
"We'll look to export gas on a flexible basis fromindependent companies," said Kuzemko. "We are very relaxed inthe type of pricing that is on LNG contracts, because as long asthe producers are happy to take that risk, so are we."
Kuzemko told Reuters the company is fully financed at themoment, but will eventually look for partners as the projectmoves through the development process.
With a long permitting process ahead, the best-case scenariois for Steelhead to see its first LNG shipments in 2022. ($1 = 1.0677 Canadian dollars) (Additional reporting by Scott Haggett in Calgary; Editing byJeffrey Benkoe)
