British Columbia’s ports are preparing to become major energy gateways. Projects are underway to send crude from Alberta’s oil sands by pipeline to Kitimat and Vancouver. Pipelines are expected to carry Canadian natural gas to Kitimat and Prince Rupert liquefaction plants.
Vancouver is a well-developed, world-class seaport—the challenge for remote seaports in north British Columbia is to ready themselves for a significant increase in traffic.
Consider Prince Rupert. It has a legacy of fish and forest-product exports, and today is home for major grain, coal, cruise ship and container terminals. The protected, deepwater port represents the shortest marine route from North America to Asia, as well as a direct rail link to and from mid-America. Canadian officials saw the value of such a port a century ago, but it is only recently that Prince Rupert has achieved prominence.
The next big thing will be LNG
The British Columbia provincial government and Malaysian energy company Petronas are moving forward with the planned US$36 billion Pacific NorthWest LNG project. TransCanada Corp. will design, build, own and operate an approximately 900-kilometer (559-mile) pipeline to deliver gas produced by Progress Energy Canada in the Fort St. John area of British Columbia to Pacific Northwest LNG’s 255-acre export facility on Lelu Island, next to Prince Rupert’s Ridley Island. The terminal will be able to berth two ships and will be connected to the mainland by a suspension bridge that will enable preservation of eelgrass wetlands, which are important to the well-being of the salmon population.
Biggest ever
British Columbia Premier Christy Clark said the project will be the largest capital investment in the province’s history. It’s just one of the proposed LNG terminals for Prince Rupert, and among the 20-plus facilities planned for the province.
During a special summer session in July, British Columbia’s legislature passed the Liquefied Natural Gas Project Agreements Act, which authorizes the provincial government to enter into LNG project agreements.
The Pacific NorthWest LNG project alone could result in as many as 4,500 construction-related jobs and hundreds of long-term operational and spin-off jobs. Provincial offices estimate as much as CA$8.6 billion (US$6.5 billion) in additional provincial revenue by 2030 through taxes and royalties.
British Columbia has developed a greenhouse-gas emissions intensity benchmark, which the province claims is lower than for any other LNG facilities in the world, with flexible options to achieve the benchmark, such as purchasing offsets and contributing to a technology fund.
All of the projects have involved Canada’s First Nations as partners to ensure protection of aboriginal lands, revenue distribution and job creation.
Project timetables will be effected by market prices for LNG and other energy commodities, but the long-term outlook looks promising.
Safe navigation
Prince Rupert, like most of the other proposed LNG terminals in British Columbia, is in a relatively remote area with room to expand.
The Prince Rupert Port Authority (PRPA) expects the port to grow substantially in the years ahead—especially with large ships and potentially hazardous cargos—so protecting the safety and security of the ships, crews, cargoes and the environment becomes even more important. In recent years, PRPA has proactively introduced a suite of safety initiatives, including new anchorage positions and tide and current monitoring stations. Today, PRPA is working with partners to create a shore-based radar system to cover the waters of the North Coast.
Three radar towers installed to provide radar coverage 50 nautical miles west to the northern tip of Haida Gwaii on Graham Island, southwest of Prince Rupert, and north beyond the Alaska border, augmenting the port’s automated information system transponders already in place. The three high-resolution radars will be installed on Mount Hays on Kaien Island, on the Prince Rupert Grain Terminal on Ridley Island and on Dundas Island, located about 20 miles northwest of Prince Rupert.
Funding for the $5 million project is being shared by a consortium of stakeholders, which includes a $2 million investment from Western Economic Diversification Canada. The radar network will be operated by the Canadian Coast Guard.
Laura Yerex, the Canadian Coast Guard’s officer in charge of marine communications and traffic services at Prince Rupert, said the port and surrounding waters have become the standard for ATON. “This represents the new national level of service.”
“With our local partners, we’re making the port safer and more secure, allowing us to develop the port in a responsible and sustainable way,” Don Krusel, president and CEO of the PRPA, told Midstream Business. “We’re improving our radar and navigational aids, so we can have world-class, leading-edge approaches and procedures for the safety, security and efficiency of the port.”
Sonia Lowe, a spokesperson for the BC Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure, told Midstream Business that said the province supports projects that ensure the port has the infrastructure it needs to compete in a trade-driven global economy.
“This investment is an acknowledgment by our federal partners of the Port of Prince Rupert’s expanding role as a major marine gateway in British Columbia. It recognizes the potential of future LNG traffic in the region and the need to accommodate growing international trade traffic,” Lowe said.
“We’re pleased that the Port of Prince Rupert is investing in infrastructure to improve safety,” said David W. Byford, manager of external affairs for BG Group in Houston. “Safety is the top priority of BG Canada and the LNG industry, and it’s a key focus of our ongoing discussions with First Nations and local communities.”
The radar systems will also contribute to maritime security.
“This tool will help us gather and analyze intelligence at the port and from the surrounding maritime environment in support of our law enforcement initiatives,” said Chief Superintendent Sean Bourrie of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
Kitimat’s challenge
Kitimat is another growing port, which is expecting both crude and LNG terminals. Presently, ships service industries
such as a Rio Tinto aluminum smelter. Very large crude carriers up to 250,000 tons are expected to transit the 155 miles from Triple Island Pilot Station on the open ocean to Kitimat, which includes Douglas Channel. The passage is generally deep but does have a couple of sections that are less than one nautical mile wide. Capt. Fred Denning of the BC Coast Pilots said that pilots have been taking ships up to Kitimat for years, and are preparing for the larger ships by conducting numerous transits in simulators, testing ship models under a variety of conditions and situations.
“We’ve made a number of recommendations that have been adopted, like the inclusion of escort tugs for the transit and improvements to the suite of Navigation Aids along the route,” Denning told Midstream Business.
“The navaid improvements would include radar coverage at the mouth of Douglas Channel to give vessel traffic services the ability to pass real time traffic information to vessels in the area. The radar coverage in the Prince Rupert area will provide real time vessel traffic information for shipping in the vicinity of the Triple Island Pilot station and surrounding areas,” he added.
Coal and biomass
Prince Rupert already has a role in the energy business. It became a prominent coal terminal when coal deposits were discovered in northeast British Columbia, and a purpose-built coal terminal was built on Ridley Island to support metallurgical and thermal coal shipments to Japan.
The coal terminal’s capacity was recently increased to 18 million tons, and 12 million tons were shipped in 2013, but the economic downturn in Asia cut that quantity in half last year, and some of the coal mines have curtailed or suspended mining operations until the market returns.
Biomass has potential to become another important energy export. Pinnacle Renewable Energy Groups Westview Wood Pellet Terminal is the first purpose-built, wood pellet export facility in North America. Pinnacle takes advantage of an abundant source of raw material—waste from the many forest products industries in British Columbia—and converts it into pelletized biofuel, animal bedding, absorbents and packaging materials.
The company has a long-term contract to provide wood pellets to a customer in the U.K., and in June loaded the largest wood pellet shipment ever, 60,000 tons of pellets aboard the M/V Popi S, for the 34-day journey to the Port of Immingham, England.
Container port
Beyond energy, Prince Rupert has emerged as an alternative North American gateway for container shipments from other West Coast ports. Prince Rupert doesn’t have the draft or berth restrictions—or congestion—that other Pacific ports do.
It’s the first port of call for regularly scheduled container ships rotating between China, South Korea and the North American West Coast, which means shipments arrive several days sooner than at Oakland, Calif., or Los Angeles/Long Beach. And the Canadian National Railway’s twice-a-day, double-stack container trains can proceed directly to Canadian markets like Toronto and Montréal, as well as U.S. destinations like Chicago and Memphis.
Today, the container terminal’s single marine berth can handle ships up to 13,000 TEUs (20-foot equivalent units, the international metric for shipping containers). Work is underway to double the capacity of the terminal to 1.3 million TEUs annually, including a second vessel berth, four additional cranes and an expanded container yard.
“Twenty years ago we thought exceeding 2 million tons would be a fantastic accomplishment. And now, by 2025, we could be knocking on the door of 80 million tons,” Krusel said.

Comments