Kitimat prepares for LNG upheaval
Residents ponder good and bad mega-project would have on town
Residents of the small coastal B.C. town of Kitimat are contemplating the future of their northern community as they wait for an announcement that LNG Canada will proceed with its export terminal mega-project. Two of the international consortium’s five partners announced approval of their investments last week. However, no official announcement has been made from all the partners.
Cor Rhode has seen big projects come and go in Kitimat, though nowhere near the scale of LNG Canada, touted as the largest infrastructure project the country has ever seen.
The longtime chef and owner of Cor’s Place restaurant — who is about to retire — said the investment decision would bring financial good to the community, as well as change, for better or worse.
“It’s the same as everywhere else: the boom and bust cycle,” Rhode said, as he mopped the floors.
While a fine-dining restaurant in a small town won’t make its owner rich, Rhode said, many of his diners were corporate customers whose visits coincided with big jobs.
“In that sense, like everyone else, it’s good for me,” he said.
If he were a younger man, Rhode would fix up the restaurant like its new owner planned to do, in a bid to catch the upswing, he said.
But a boom would also bring many new faces to the small town, and “that can be quite significant for some people,” said Rhode, who arrived in Kitimat from Vancouver in 1980.
Peggy Walton, a local driver, had concerns about the effects the decision could have on the town. When the last big project came to Kitimat, she had to fight her landlords to stop them from hiking the rent on her and her two boys, she said.
Major projects can also spark food security issues because they bring to town many new mouths to feed.
“The last time, it was get in line for bread, get in line for milk,” Walton said.
Kitimat Mayor Phil Germuth said an official announcement would be “a game-changer, there’s no doubt.
“You know, over 60 years ago, Kitimat was the location of the largest private investment in Canada at that time, when Alcan built their smelter,” Germuth said. “It would be pretty cool to be the largest private investment in Canadian history at this time (as well).”
Germuth figured some of the thousands of temporary workers who come to build the project may decide to stay in town.
“We’ve realized on other projects before that workers come to Kitimat for the job, but once they realize how beautiful it is up here, a lot of them will do what they can to make Kitimat their home.”
Kitimat has a population of 8,000, and Rio Tinto — which owns the aluminum smelter — employs 1,000 people. Once the LNG Canada facility is fully up and running, it could provide 300 to 400 full-time jobs, plus spinoff employment, Germuth said.
Germuth hoped an affirmative decision from LNG Canada would also lead to another major project coming online: a Kitimat LNG facility led by Chevron Canada.
That project could create an additional 3,000 jobs at peak construction over the course of five years, according to the company. Preparatory work is already happening at its work site, and full construction would start if there was a positive final investment decision by Chevron and Woodside, according to the company.
“Generally, around the world, if you see one LNG go forward, you see another one will follow. There’s not too many places where there’s only one,” Germuth said.
“At Kitimat, boy, we really look forward to one day being able to be the LNG capital of Canada.”
The first phase of the LNG facility will take up to seven years to build, according to the company, and work is already underway on a 4,500-bed work camp.
The Kitimat export terminal would be the closest North American LNG port to Asian markets. The shipping time to Tokyo is about eight days compared with 20 days from the U.S. Gulf.
The anticipated investment decision is for two LNG liquefaction units, capable of 13 million tons a year, with more capacity to be built later.