British Columbia's finance minister Michael de Jong said that the construction of Petroliam Nasional Bhd’s (Petronas) $36 billion liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal project in Canada is expected to start in September.
“We are awaiting the final environmental certificate. We are hoping by this fall. All of the other prerequisites have been dealt with now,” said Michael.
Michael is travelling to Malaysia to discuss and will meet with officials over the next six days to discuss the ratification of a project agreement with Pacific Northwest LNG, a consortium led by Malaysia energy giant Petronas.
The province passed legislation this week that allowed it to enter into an agreement with the consortium to build an LNG export terminal near Prince Rupert.
"Malaysia and Petronas have been instrumental in leading a consortium of companies from China, India, Japan and Brunei in the project. "This will be Malaysian technology partnering a Canadian company to access resource that we have in abundance to the rest of the world," de Jong said.
The Petronas-led Pacific NorthWest LNG project in north-eastern British Columbia involves the construction of facilities to process and export natural gas to be produced by Progress Energy Canada Ltd.
The group hit a speed bump earlier when one of the First Nation communities rejected an offer of C$1bil (RM2.93bil), in return for supporting the LNG export terminal in northern British Columbia.