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Alberta Oil
The clock is ticking on West Coast LNG shipments Nuclear outages in Japan stoke Canadian export plans

The uptick in LNG consumption is potentially good news for a suite of liquefaction plants taking shape on the northwest coast of British Columbia. Japan is one of several potential sales targets for the Apache Canada Ltd.-led Kitimat LNG project, which is currently awaiting approval from the National Energy Board to begin shipping five million tonnes of the stuff annually from a new facility at Bish Cove. Liquefied gas costs spiked 33 per cent after the March 11 quake, Bloomberg reports, and they may rise higher yet.

Competition will be stiff. Canadian forays into LNG will rub shoulders with the likes of ExxonMobil, BG Group Plc and Qatargas, among others, who are likewise clamoring to deliver chilled gas to a power market in need. Just 16 of the country's 54 reactors were online last month, according to the International Energy Agency. (That's no small figure, as the atom currently meets 27 per cent of the island's electricity needs).

Financial Post
LNG on the rise

Liquefied natural gas prices are surging to a three-year high as demand from Japan, China and India outpaces supply increases, boosting sales for producers from BG Group Plc to Exxon Mobil Corp....

North America may export about 5 billion cubic feet a day of LNG, or roughly the combined LNG export capacity of Nigeria and Algeria, globally by 2017 from projects that turn surplus gas from shale-rock formations to LNG for shipment to customers in Asia and Europe, according to the Eurasia Group, a New York- based consultant. That's about half of the six proposed developments by companies including Cheniere in the U.S. Gulf Coast and British Columbia.