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Alberta blocks sale of Shell Canada midstream & upstream assets to Pieridae

Alberta Energy Regulator has blocked sale of Shell Canada assets to Canadian LNG company Pieridae Energy over environmental concerns. According to the regulator, the conditions of the sale, which splits liabilities for cleaning up the sites, are making impossible to know which company would be responsible for what part of remediation. The assets included in the transaction produces around 28,600 boe/d, including 119 mcf/d (3.4 mcm/d or 1.2 bcm/year) of gas. They comprised three deep cut, sour gas processing plants (Jumping Pound, Caroline and Waterton) with a combined capacity of 750 mcf/d (21 mcm/d or 7.7 bcm/year), along with around 1,700 km of pipelines.

In October 2019, Pieridae Energy closed the acquisition of Shell's midstream and upstream assets in the southern Alberta Foothills for CAD190m (US$145m). In April 2020, Pieridae Energy postponed the final investment decision (FID) for the 10 Mt/year Goldboro LNG export terminal project in Nova Scotia (Canada) due to coronavirus pandemic. The FID was initially expected in late September 2020 but could be delayed to June 2021. Pieridae Energy, which signed a 20-year agreement to sell all of the LNG production from train 1 at Goldboro (5 Mt/year) to German utility Uniper starting between 30 November 2024 and 31 May 2025, is negotiating with its customer to extend the FID deadline.

The US$10bn LNG project will consist of two 5 Mt/year liquefaction trains and on-site storage capacity of 690,000 m3 of LNG. Construction is expecting to last 56 months, and the project was expected to be commissioned between 2024 and 2025 (likely delayed due to the postponement of the FID). Its target markets are Europe and Asia.