Looking Out My Back Door

 

Imagine my surprise the other day when I looked outside my window and saw a rather strange looking ship sitting at anchor in English Bay. Wondering what type of ship it was, a quick search identified it as a first of its kind ship-to-ship refuelling vessel, owned by Seaspan, that instead of diesel it supplies LNG. With LNG now coming into its own as a transition fuel for the shipping industry, this is a welcome improvement to the dirty bunker oil most ships are using. 

And in keeping with cleaner, low carbon solutions for the shipping industry, Vancouver is now one of the few places in the world to have electric tug boats operating in its harbour. With a fleet of over 200 tugs SAAM Towage is the largest tugboat operator in the Americas, and adding electric tug boats is a big game changer for the industry. Quiet, pollution free, and providing instant power when needed, tug captains are singing their praise.

But they weren't the first electric tugs to appear in Vancouver. The first electric tug in Canada, and the world, was the Haisea Wamis, owned by HaiSea Marine, a collaboration between the Haisla Nation and Seaspan. HaiSea now has a fleet of three electric tugboats and all of them are up in Kitimat where they are providing escort towing services for the LNG industry.

Both the HaiSea Marine and SAAM Towage tugs were built in the Sanmar shipyard in Turkey where most of the world's tugboats are made. Designed by Robert Allan Naval Architects and Marine Engineers and powered by Corvus Energy, two innovative firms, both founded in Vancouver, that have become leaders in clean marine technology.

Of course what links all this together is the new LNG facility in Kitimat that, after 7 years of negotiations with First Nations and various levels of government, followed by more than 7 years of constructing pipelines, processing units, tanks, and marine terminals, is finally getting ready to open. While still considered a fossil fuel, natural gas is viewed by many as a transitional fuel source for the world as it slowly shifts to nuclear, solar, and other sources of renewable energy. With some of the world's largest natural gas reserves and being the world's 5th largest producer of natural gas, Canada is well positioned to take advantage of this transition.

While the Haisla peoples in and around Kitimat have partnered with the LNG Canada consortium to provide employment opportunities for the community at the facility itself, the actual construction of the 670 km. pipeline by Coastal GasLink was considerably more complicated. Agreements had to be signed with all 20 bands along the route from Fort St. John to Kitimat and this exposed the decision-making challenges that had to be addressed between elected and hereditary leaders. There were numerous protests and court challenges but eventually the work proceeded and the pipeline was built. 

The Kitimat facility will be the first LNG export facility in Canada. LNG, which is natural gas cooled to a liquid state at extremely low temperatures, is loaded onto specially designed vessels where the gas is kept in tanks at a temperature of -162C for transport. This process reduces the volume of natural gas by 600 times making it easy to store. Since LNG does not contain oxygen it cannot support combustion making it very safe to handle. If LNG is somehow released it quickly vapourizes and disappears into the atmosphere without leaving any residue behind. LNG shipping has one of the best records in the world without a single cargo loss since the first commercial ship went into operation in 1964. Good thing because the Kitimat facility anticipates an LNG tanker leaving every day.

The miles of pipes in the Kitimat LNG facility are enough to bewilder any casual observer and even more amazing is that they come in pre-manufactured modules, 10 storeys high, from China that are then assembled on site. If all goes well a second phase is planned that will double production. But this isn't the only LNG export facility planned for B.C. there is also the Woodfibre LNG in Squamish, Ksi Lisims LNG in Gingolx, Cedar LNG in Kitimat, and Tilbury LNG in Delta that are coming on stream. Of course these facilities also require a tremendous amout of power to operate, whether it is hydroelectric, natural gas or a combination of the two but clearly they represent the future in terms of a net new energy source.

The U.S. has been quick to take advantage of Europe's need for LNG, following the destruction of the Russian Nordstream pipelines during the Ukranian war, but Canada was left out in the cold. So far all of our export facilities are based on the west coast with an eye on the Asian market. A pipeline to the East Coast is needed to open up the European market. Now that we have finally woken up to the threat of the U.S. to our economy and perhaps our very existence, this could be the opportunity for us to get moving on finally building a robust LNG export business. Change is in the air and looking out my back door I'm seeing a lot of LNG.