The LNG Canada flare spiked at 260 million standard cubic feet per day or about 7,362,380 cubic metres per day during production problems with Train 2 during October, satellite data obtained by Northwest Coast Energy News can reveal. That is much higher than the expected 11,000 cubic metres per day for normal plant operations and higher than the 1.7 million cubic metres of gas on a single day in September reported earlier by the Narwhal.

The preliminary data comes from the World Bank’s The Global Flaring and Methane Reduction Partnership (GFMR) which monitors gas flaring around the world.

Source: World Bank; National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA); Payne Institute at Colorado School of Mines.

At the request of Northwest Coast Energy News, the project reported:

The flares from the Kitimat LNG plant were first detected by NOAA’s VIIRS satellite on 9 July 2025. Intermittent flaring has continued up to 1 February 2026, the last day measurement was made. During this period, estimated flare rates were mainly between zero and 20 million standard cubic feet per day (MMscf/d), with occasional spikes at rates estimated to be up to 260 MMscf/d.

The project notes:

Flaring during start-up of new LNG plants takes place in most, if not all, cases. Generating LNG is a complex process that requires careful ‘tuning’ of the plant operations and, with a new plant, getting the set-up correct can take some time. Once the process is operating normally, with a well-designed and well-operated plant, there should be negligible flaring.

Twenty million standard cubic feet per day is approximately 56, 633 cubic metres.

Flaring began in September 2024, when LNG Canada introduced natural gas to the facility for the first time as part of testing and start up.

The flaring spikes on the graph corelate with the warnings issued by LNG Canada on Facebook and on its news page.

Train 2 began production on Nov 8, 2025, and immediately ran into problems, according to LNG Canada.

Residents complain

For months Kitimat residents, mostly those who live in the Kildala neighborhood which is close to the LNG facility have complained about the noise, flames and black smoke. When flaring is at its peak, the noise from the flare stacks can be heard across town. The orange light from the flames can light up a room at the darkest of winter nights. There are also worries about the possible combination of contaminants from the flare and the sulphur dioxide emissions from the nearby Rio Tinto aluminum smelter.

LNG Canada has previously reported “integrity issues” and “technical issues” with the flaring.

In January the Narwhal reported on Freedom of Information requests it had filed with the province that LNG Canada officials were discussing the flaring issues internally and had waited approximately four months to tell the British Columbia provincial energy regulator. The report went on to state the facility was “routing additional gas” to the flare to mitigate the problem, according to the document. The system should be fine to operate by burning 11,000 cubic metres of gas per day, but due to the issue it would need to burn at least 170,000 cubic metres daily, the document stated. Burning the extra gas would result in “a noticeable impact in the community with respect to noise, light and visual disturbance,” according to the regulator’s internal briefing note. 

LNG Canada, provincial agencies and stakeholders have been approached for comments which will posted once responses are received.

Black Carbon

The black smoke sometimes seen from the largest flares from LNG Canada is, according to the World Bank report is black carbon.

 commonly known as soot - is another pollutant sometimes released by gas flares. Black carbon is produced through the incomplete combustion of fossil fuels and, despite remaining in the atmosphere for just a few days or weeks, has a very significant climate impact. This is of particular concern in the Arctic, where black carbon deposits are believed to increase the rate at which snow and ice are melting. Research from the European Geosciences Union indicates that gas flaring emissions may contribute about 40 percent of the annual black carbon deposits in the Arctic.

Airshed reports

In July 2014, the provincial government issued a report on potential Kitimat valley airshed problems at the time several industrial projects were in the planning stage. A follow up study was issued in July 2015. The overall conclusions of both reports were that Kitimat could “Kitimat’s airshed can safely accommodate new industrial growth” without major affects on either human health or the environment.”

Both studies concluded that the risk from particulate matter to human health in Kitimat were in the middle “yellow zone” based on guidelines from the Canadian Ambient Air Quality Standards, with the service centre in the higher orange zone in some circumstances. Haisla was in the green zone.

Original coverage from 2014.

Kitimat can accommodate industrial growth, air shed study says. But where's Northern Gateway?

Kitimat air shed study raises more questions than it actually answers

That study did not include the then proposed Northern Gateway Pipeline but did include:

• Rio Tinto Alcan’s existing aluminium smelter and its planned modernization
• David Blacks proposed “Kitimat Clean” oil refinery at Onion flats
• Four proposed LNG facilities; Shell-led LNG Canada, Chevron lead Kitimat LNG, the floating Douglas Channel LNG at the old log dump and a second floating LNG project called Triton.
• BC Hydro gas turbine powered electrical generation facilities in Kitimat and near Terrace
• Predicted increased to marine shipping in Douglas Channe
It also included Gitga’at Old Town, Hartley Bay (Kulkayu), Kitimat-Stikine, Kitselas, Kitsumkaylum, Kshish, and Terrace.

Subsequently the province also studied the Prince Rupert airshed in 2016 and came to the same conclusion that the area could accommodate “accommodate emissions from new industrial development with proper management, “
In June 2025 BC approved the continued construction of a new pipeline project that could supply natural gas to a proposed floating liquefied natural gas export terminal close to Prince Rupert.  That pipeline could terminate alternativity at either at Lelu Island or at Wil Milit on Pearse Island, about 82 kilometres north of the Port of Prince Rupert and closer to the proposed Ksi Lisims LNG export facility.

Actual airshed study

2014 Airshed study (PDF)

2014-04-25_essa-qa_kitimat_airshed
2015 Airshed study supplement (PDF)

2015-03-31_essa-pm2-5_suppl-kaeea

There has been no comprehensive study of the Kitimat’s air quality by the province since the completion and startup of the Rio Tinto Kitimat Modernization project, the start up of operations at LNG Canada and the increased tanker traffic in Douglas Channel. The Kitimat Airshed group last issued major reports an air quality data reviews up to December 31st, 2023, and meteorological data reviews up t December 31st, 2022, both before the startup of LNG Canada operations. Emissions will increase somewhat when the Haisla Cedar LNG project comes online, although there is one difference. LNG Canada use gas turbines in the liquefaction process. Cedar LNG hasy received a $200-million subsidy from B.C. to use electricity.

The Kitimat Airshed Group does monitor air quality daily at Haisla, the Haul Road, Industrial Avenue, Riverlodge, Whitesail and the Yacht Club. Overall daily monitoring usually reports low risk at the stations.

The air quality summary for the fourth quarter of 2025 where most of the problems occurred from the Kitimat Airshed Group did note.
● LNG Canada continued planned flaring associated with Train 1, startup of Train 2, the cool-down
of an LNG carrier, Train 2 restart, a facility restarts due to a BC Hydro outage, as well as several
unplanned flaring events.
● There were 6 SO2 readings higher than the metric value (70 ppb) recorded

Warnings

In September 2025, a peer-reviewed research study  co-funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, found liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facilities flare three times more gas during start-up operations than during regular operations. The scientists involved in the study said that start-up, or commissioning, flaring has not been truly modeled in the environmental assessments for any of Canada’s LNG export facilities, including LNG Canada, Woodfibre LNG, Cedar LNG or Ksi Lisims LNG. That study was based in part on the same satellite data released by the World Bank

You can access the study and its technical details in the Environmental Science & Technology Journal. 

The news release stated:

LNG Canada was not included in the study because it was under construction during the study period. In September 2025, researchers analyzed VIIRS data for LNG Canada’s fourth quarter of operations in 2024, corresponding to a period in the facility’s very initial commissioning phase. Three flaring events were detected from among the more than 30 days of flaring announced by LNG Canada, suggesting that estimates of gas volumes and subsequent models are very conservative and continue to underestimate the full impact of start-up flaring.
The study – Analysis of Flaring Activity at Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) Export Facilities Worldwide was published in the peer-reviewed Environmental Science & Technology Journal. The research project was part of a larger, ongoing collaboration between the University of Victoria (UVic), Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE), Simon Fraser University (SFU), University of Toronto, and Texas A&M University.
“Our real-world analysis shows that start-up flaring is among the highest-emission phases of an LNG plant’s lifecycle and can last for up to two years,” said lead researcher Dr. Laura Minet, head of the Clean Air Lab at the University of Victoria. “There is a false assumption that the commissioning phase is short, with regulators in Canada, and beyond, satisfied with relying on industry-provided flaring assumptions for environmental permitting that do not include modeling for the start-up phase.”
During the start-up and commissioning phase at LNG Canada in Kitimat, the proponent issued more than 20 community notifications, between September 2024 and September 2025 regarding commissioning-related flaring activity, many for multiple days, weeks or months. Each of these notifications said, “Flaring is a provincially regulated safety measure that ensures the controlled, efficient combustion of natural gas during specific operational phases.”

In its permitting documentation filed with the BC Energy Regulator, LNG Canada did not provide emissions estimates for commissioning flaring, mentioning instead upset, or emergency, flaring. Woodfibre LNG, under construction in Squamish, has filed documentation with the BC Energy Regulator stating that it anticipates flaring in the commissioning phase to have up to a one-month duration.

“LNG has taken centre stage in the Carney administration’s nation-building strategy, and yet we’re continuing to discover how poorly regulated this industry really is, particularly with respect to its risks to human health,” says Dr. Tim Takaro, toxicology and public health expert, and Professor Emeritus, Faculty of Health Sciences, Simon Fraser University. “Why aren’t governments requiring LNG proponents to model and track start-up emissions, which we know are significant given the proximity of many of British Columbia’s LNG facilities to residential areas in Squamish and Kitimat, and the Vancouver area?”
Using observed satellite data, the study developed models to estimate the likelihood of flaring events and the volumes of gas flared during both start-up and regular operation phases. These models offer a risk-based framework for evaluating flaring across different operational stages, which could be used throughout the air quality portion of LNG export facility environmental impact assessments.
Dr. Sally Harvie, a radiologist and member of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, says; “The health impacts of LNG flaring are compounded by the magnitude of these greenhouse gas emissions. Nobody even monitors emissions during the commissioning phase, allowing them to go untracked as though they didn’t exist. This is yet more evidence to bust the fictitious notion that Canadian LNG is ‘clean.’”

Link: Tyee story on the study  Exclusive: LNG Expansion Brings New Health Risks to Kitimat

World Bank Monitoring

The Global Flaring and Methane Reduction Partnership (GFMR) at the World Bank is described as a partnership “several governments and international energy companies” including the United States, the United Arab Emirates and Norway. Shell a major partner in LNG Canada is a member. The government of Canada is not a member.

In its most recent annual report, the partnership said that in 2024 flaring had reached its highest level worldwide since 2007.

Global gas flaring surged for a second year in a row, wasting about $63 billion in lost energy and setting back efforts to manage emissions and boost energy security and access. Flaring, the practice of burning natural gas during oil extraction, reached 151 billion cubic meters (bcm) in 2024, up 3 bcm from the previous year and the highest level in almost two decades. An estimated 389 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent—46 million of that from unburnt methane, one of the most potent greenhouse gases—was needlessly emitted.

In its Flaring Guide GFMR says 

Associated gas is wastefully flared for a variety of reasons from market and economic constraints to a lack of infrastructure to capture the gas, or the absence of effective and enforced regulations and a lack of priority by field operators. Flaring and venting are a waste of a valuable natural resource that should either be used for productive purposes, such as generating power, or conserved. For instance, the amount of gas currently flared each year – about 151 billion cubic meters (bcm) – could, if supplied to power generation facilities, power the whole of sub-Saharan Africa.

Canada is far down the list of nations with high levels of flaring, concentrated in Alberta. The latest data is from 2024, when there was only minor flaring from LNG Canada prior to testing, startup and operations.

Methane Guide 

In 2015, the World Bank with its Global Flaring and Methane Reduction Partnership announced an aim of eliminating Zero Routine Flaring worldwide by 2030.
The flaring of gas contributes to climate change and impacts the environment through the emission of CO2, black carbon and other pollutants. It also wastes a valuable energy resource that could be used to advance the sustainable development of producing countries

Canada has endorsed the Zero Flaring Initiative as has Shell and Petronas, partners in LNG Canada. Separately Shell had announced in October 2021 that it was implementing an initiative to halve zero routine flaring by 2025. and halve all other flaring emissions by 2030, based on its 2010 figures. (Shell later changed the benchmark to 2016 levels)The other LNG Canada joint venture partners, Mitsubishi, PetroChina and Korean Gas Corporation are not listed as endorsing the initiative.

How data is collected

The Global Gas Flaring Tracker Report is produced on an annual basis by the World Bank’s Global Flaring and Methane Reduction (GFMR) Partnership, comprising governments, oil companies, and multilateral organizations working to end routine gas flaring at oil production sites around the world. GFMR, in partnership with the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Payne Institute for Public Policy at the Colorado School of Mines, has developed global gas flaring estimates based upon observations from satellites. The advanced sensors of these satellites detect the heat emitted by gas flares as infrared emissions at global upstream oil and gas facilities.

The satellite that gathers the flaring data is US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) mounted Visual and Infrared Radiometer Suite of detectors (VIIRS) suite which is carried by two US satellites launched in 2012 and 2017.

NOAS describes as an instrument collects visible and infrared images and global observations of the land, atmosphere, cryosphere and oceans. VIIRS instruments generate many critical environmental products pertaining to snow and ice cover, clouds, fog, aerosols, fire, smoke plumes, dust, vegetation health, phytoplankton abundance and chlorophyll. VIIRS features daily imaging capabilities across multiple electromagnetic spectrum bands to collect high-resolution atmospheric imagery and other instrument products, including visible and infrared images of hurricanes and detection of fires, smoke and particles in the atmosphere, such as dust.
The VIIRS has a multispectral set of infrared detectors which the project uses to detect flaring. At nighttime it responds only to heat emissions and hence are not affected by moonlight, or other light sources; it responds to wavelengths where emissions from flares are at a maximum; and has excellent spatial resolution.

The World Bank project says “The ability of VIIRS to detect and discriminate hot sources, such as gas flares, enables flares to be detected automatically with minimal manual intervention. Emissions from non-flare hot sources (e.g., biomass burning) can be removed from the data by selecting only emissions with temperatures above 1,100°C; other hot sources burn at lower temperatures. Indeed, flares burn hotter than any other terrestrial hot sources, including volcanoes. Since the first year of operation in 2012, VIIRS satellites have automatically detected ~10,000 flares annually around the globe…. The Colorado School of Mines and GFMR currently quantify these infrared emissions and calibrate them using country-level data collected by a third-party data supplier, Cedigaz, to produce estimates of global gas flaring volumes. The satellite data for estimating flare gas volumes are collected by NOAA’s satellite-mounted Visual and Infrared Radiometer Suite of detectors (VIIRS).