Pacific Northwest LNG took the next step toward an export terminal island on Lelu Island earlier this week with the awarding of the front-end engineering and design (FEED) contract.
The contract, which will see three firms working together to design the terminal and work on feasibility studies in the Port Edward area, were awarded to Bechtel, a KBR/JGC joint venture, and a Technip/Samsung Engineering/China Huanqiu joint venture.
"This is an exciting step for Pacific NorthWest LNG," said Greg Kist, President of Pacific NorthWest LNG.
"Not only are we moving forward in our plans to build a major LNG export facility here in British Columbia, we are developing a core of Canadian engineering expertise for a promising new segment within the Canadian energy industry. This investment in skills training will help ensure that we establish and grow our LNG capacity and operations for many years."
The FEED and Engineering, Procurement, Construction and Commissioning bid is expected to be complete by August 2014. At the end of 2014 Pacific NorthWest LNG partners, Malaysia's national energy company, PETRONAS and Japex, plan to make the final investment decision on the project.
As part of the FEED process, and to build Canadian LNG engineering expertise, Pacific Northwest plans to recruit and hire up to 30 Canadian engineers who will be temporarily embedded with the FEED contractors over the next one to two years. Following completion of the FEED work and awarding of the engineering, procurement, construction and commissioning work, the Canadian team of engineers will be mobilized to the Pacific NorthWest LNG's Vancouver office or at the site in the Prince Rupert area.
"Hiring Canadian engineers and placing them in companies with decades of international experience in LNG engineering will ultimately pay long-term dividends in establishing a base of Canadian LNG engineering expertise in our British Columbia operations," said Kist.
"This world-class engineering and design work provides a tremendous opportunity to begin the process of creating an LNG knowledge centre in Vancouver."