Petronas studying options to monetise gas assets in Canada

KUALA LUMPUR: Petroliam Nasional Bhd (Petronas) is weighing the options to develop and monetise its gas resources in Canada after shelving the plan for a multi-billion dollar liquefied natural gas (LNG) project in British Columbia.
Executive vice-president and CEO (upstream) Datuk Mohd Anuar Taib said among the possibilities under consideration would be investing in a pipeline to connect and market its gas resources from an area which has 22.3 trillion cubic feet (TCF) of proven unconventional gas to the rest of Canada and North America.
Petronas’ gas resources are located in North Montney area and are operated by unit Progress Energy Canada Ltd. The area has been producing gas since 2012, supplying to the Canadian market which has demand of 14 billions standard cubic feet (BCF) a day – roughly seven times that of Peninsular Malaysia.
“We are now looking at the possibility of working together with partners or parties to look at a pipeline that could be built to connect that area to the rest of Canadian market,” he told Bernama.
The pipeline, if it materialises, could give Petronas access to the rest of the North American market which has a size of about 84 BCF a day, or roughly 40 to 41 times that of Peninsular Malaysia.
“So, now the story in Canada becomes ‘we (Petronas) have a significant proven resources, sitting in one of the largest markets in the world and there must be ways for us to monetise those resources’,” he said.
As a comparison, he said, Petronas’ unconventional Canadian gas acreage represented an area about twice the size of Malacca with resources roughly 30-35% that of Malaysia’s proven gas resources.
Mohd Anuar said Petronas’ North Montney asset in the British Columbia province, currently produced about 600 million standard cubic feet per day of gas for the local market.