The Ministry of Environment of British Columbia (Canada) has approved the provincial environmental assessment certificates for Petronas' Pacific NorthWest LNG project, along with two gas transmission pipelines, namely TransCanada's Prince Rupert Gas Transmission (PRGT) pipeline and Spectra's Westcoast Connector Gas Transmission pipeline.
Pacific NorthWest LNG is a proposed 12 Mt/year liquefaction project located at Lelu Island near Prince Rupert, British Columbia. The project is developed by Progress Energy (fully owned by Petronas of Malaysia), which will retain 62% of the project when the sale of minority stakes (10% to Japex, 3% to PetroleumBrunei and 10% to Indian Oil Corporation) will be completed. The US$11bn project is expected to be completed in 2018 with commercial operations scheduled for early 2019. The Prince Rupert Gas Transmission pipeline would be a 900-km gas pipeline stretching from Hope (north-eastern British Columbia) to the liquefaction plant.
The Westcoast Connector Gas Transmission pipeline proposed by Spectra will consist of two 860 km gas pipelines from the the Cypress Area in north-east British Columbia to a new LNG terminal proposed at Ridley Island near Prince Rupert by BG (final investment decision delayed to 2017 at the earliest, without progress so far).