FortisBC has big plans for expansion of Tilbury Island LNG plant
FortisBC is still putting the finishing touches on a $400 million expansion of its Tilbury Island LNG plant, but is already pushing ahead with a second phase expansion.
When complete, the $3 billion expansion would mean the Tilbury Island plant would produce more LNG than the Woodfibre LNG plant in Squamish.
The second phase expansion proposal has just entered the BC Environmental Assessment Office’s review process with the filing of a project description – a process that FortisBC expects will take two years to complete.
It may also be subject to the federal government’s new Impact Assessment Act, which a number of business and industry groups have warned could be even more onerous, costly and lengthy than the Environmental Assessment Act that it replaced. B.C. has also made changes to its provincial Environmental Assessment Act. Both federal and provincial acts have increased the role of indigenous people in the environmental review process.
“The key thing for us is that we’re into the new environmental process, so that will be interesting to see how that plays out,” said Doug Stout, FortisBC’s vice president of marketing and external relations.
Meanwhile, FortisBC’s partner in the Tilbury marine jetty project – WesPac Midstream – is nearing the end of an environmental review for a new marine jetty it plans to build at Tilbury Island for a new marine bunkering facility.
FortisBC hopes to see the jetty’s approval sometime this summer, with a completion date of 2022. Should the phase two expansion be approved, it’s not expected to be complete until 2028.
If the expansion is approved, it might require an expansion of the Enbridge Inc. natural gas pipeline system that supplies FortisBC with its natural gas.
“To finish out phase one, we think there’s capacity there on the system,” Stout said. “For phase two, we’d need some expanded gas transportation capacity through Enbridge.”
