B.C. Backs LNG Bunkering
The British Columbia Government has joined Vancouver Fraser Port Authority and FortisBC to establish the first ship-to-ship LNG marine refueling – or bunkering – facility on the west coast of North America.The use of LNG to power the world’s ocean-going vessels is forecast to expand and B.C. is well positioned to benefit from this growth.According to industry standards, replacing diesel fuel with LNG has the potential to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by approximately 20%. Because FortisBC’s Tilbury facility runs on clean B.C. electricity, LNG produced there could reduce GHG emissions in marine shipping by up to 26%.LNG-fueled…
Scale of BC's LNG Terminal Plans Questioned
The British Columbia government has staked its future on natural gas exports, banking on a revenue windfall of at least $100-billion. Yet growing market pessimism and a sudden broadside from large gas consumers is casting fresh doubt on the planned scale of the emerging liquefied natural gas industry, reports the 'Financial Post'. The Pacific Northwest LNG project, located on Lelu Island in the Port Edward district, will liquefy and export natural gas produced in northeastern British Columbia by Progress Energy Canada.
B.C. Seeks End to Offshore Drilling Ban
British Columbia's government is pushing to end a nearly four-decades-old ban on offshore oil and natural gas drilling to encourage exploration, Bloomberg reported. Fields off Canada's westernmost province's shores hold as much as 10 billion barrels of oil and 40 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, according to government estimates. It could be the biggest offshore reserves for any province based on these estimates, topping Newfoundland on the east coast. British Columbia is working to get a federal and provincial ban lifted. Talks with the former Liberal Party government started four years ago with limited progress. The province will now negotiate with the new Conservative Party government of Stephen Harper, a native of the oil-rich province of Alberta.
BC Ferries Fights Transsexual’s Claims
Once, he was John Marshall Magnone, a West Coast mariner who worked for the ferry division of a British Columbia government ministry. Then John became Deborah and got a job as a deckhand for BC Ferries. Now she claims her gender switch cost her a job with the province's main ferry company, according to a report on the Globeandmail.com. Ms. Magnone claims she was fired last year because she is a transsexual. She has filed a complaint with the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal. But BC Ferries says she's an incompetent sailor and its CEO says the company will fight her complaint. In her complaint, Ms. Magnone says she believes her employers fired her when they learned she is a transsexual. "It is Ms.
