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May 6 (Reuters) - Canadian liquefied natural gas developer
Woodfibre LNG said Thursday it signed a second agreement to sell
LNG from its proposed export plant in British Columbia to a unit
of oil major BP PLC.
That puts the plant a step closer to getting built in a
market that has seen some cancellations in recent months but not
many new projects.
Woodfibre said it will sell 0.75 million tonnes per annum
(MTPA) of LNG to BP's BP Gas Marketing Ltd over 15 years on a
free on board (FOB) basis.
This latest agreement will increase BP's total LNG off-take
to 1.5 MTPA from Woodfibre's proposed 2.1-MTPA plant.
One MTPA is equivalent to 0.13 billion cubic feet per day of
natural gas.
Woodfibre is one of a dozen companies developing North
American LNG export plants that have said they could make a
final investment decision (FID) to start construction in 2021.
Most of those projects were carried over from 2020 and several
were also carried over from 2019.
Officials from Woodfibre were not immediately available for
comment.
Woodfibre has said it could make a FID in 2021 that would
put the plant on track to produce first LNG in 2025 at a cost of
around C$1.6 billion-C$1.8 billion.
Over the past two months, Annova, another LNG developer,
stopped work on its export plant in Brownsville, Texas, and
Pembina paused development of its Jordan Cove project in Oregon.
Global LNG demand has increased every year since 2012 and
hit record highs every year since 2015 mostly due to fast-rising
demand in Asia.
But more recently, global gas buyers have been slow to sign
new long-term contracts needed to finance the
multibillion-dollar projects due to overbuilding of LNG export
terminals in 2019 and coronavirus demand destruction and the
collapse of gas prices in 2020.
(Reporting by Scott DiSavino. Editing by Jane Merriman)
BP (BP.)
