Canada has been exporting propane from marine terminals in British Columbia (BC) to Asian markets since May 2019 and, despite modest propane production volumes, has become an integral part of the global market: Japan , for example, depends on Canada for one. ninth of its LPG. Now the companies that co-own the larger of BC’s two LPG export terminals are planning another facility next door that would double Canadian propane exports to Asia over the next few years. In today’s RBN blog, we discuss the AltaGas/Royal Vopak plan and its implications for Canadian LPG producers and consumers in Canada, the US and Asia.
You would think that exporting hydrocarbons from western Canada to Asia would be a no-brainer. After all, Western Canada offers huge resources of crude oil, natural gas and NGLs and Asia, a direct shot into the Pacific Ocean, has seemingly inexhaustible demand. But efforts to export energy products from Canada’s west coast to Asian markets were repeatedly thwarted, at least until May 2019, when propane was first exported from AltaGas and the export terminal of Ridley Island Propane (RIPET) (70/30) jointly owned by Royal Vopak; green pentagon in Figure 1), which is south of Prince Rupert, BC. Starting with an initial export capacity of 40 Mb/d, which has since been expanded to 80 Mb/d, the terminal has been in constant operation since then, depending on propane supplies from the areas producers of northeastern BC and western Alberta (CN Lane shown by the red dotted line). RIPET joined two years later in 2021 at Pembina Pipelines’ new 25 Mb/d Prince Rupert Export Terminal (PRET; blue pentagon), which is a short distance from RIPET on Watson Island . PRET’s supplies also come from the same production areas. (By the way, you can track propane exports from these two terminals on our NGL Voyager Report.)
