TC Energy (TSX,NYSE:TRP) has given a notice to start construction August 24 on a new natural gas pipeline that will supply the Ksi Lisims LNG project near Prince Rupert with natural gas, despite the fact Ksi Lisims doesn’t yet have an environmental certificate.
While TC Energy gave the notice, the company is not expected to actually be doing any of the work, as the pipeline project should have changed hands by the construction start date.
TC Energy owns the Prince Rupert Gas Transmission (PRGT) project, which was originally intended for the $36 billion Petronas Pacific NorthWest LNG project.
TC Energy plans to sell the project to the Ksi Lisims LNG partners: the Nisga’a government and Western LNG.
The 900-kilometre natural gas pipeline received an environmental certificate in 2015, but two years later, the project it was to be built for – Pacific NorthWest LNG – was abandoned by Petronas.
TC Energy received a number of extensions to maintain the pipeline project's environmental certificate. But according to its most recent extension, the pipeline project must be “substantially started” before the environmental certificate expires on November 25, 2024.
In a notice to the BC EAO June 11, TC Energy said construction will start on the project on August 24, “subject to the successful closing of the sale of PRGT entities to Western (LNG) and Nisga’a Lisims Government.”
"The Nisga'a Nation and Western LNG are expecting to close the sale with TC Energy by end of June," Ksi Lisims LNG spokesperson Rebecca Scott said in an email to BIV News. "TC Energy made the filing but they will not have a role in PRGT's construction."
All work in August will be on Nisga'a lands.
"Activities will include physical works such as clearing and land preparation, and permanent road and bridge improvements," Scott said. "The latter is important and intensive work as the Nisga'a Lands have some of the harder-to-access sections of the project corridor."
Scott said the Ksi Lisims LNG partners are hoping to have a decision on its environmental certificate application by the end of this year.
