B.C. Government says despite Malaysian report, Pacific NorthWest LNG project still moving forward

A story from a Malaysian media group this week provided for a bit of a bump to the website's flow from British Columbia, as those with an interest in the LNG files explored yet one more rumour when it comes to the proposed Pacific NorthWest LNG project.

On Tuesday, the business paper Malaysian Review posted this story to its website, suggesting that owing to the depressed state of the oil and gas sector of late that Petronas, the main investor in the project was likely to defer its plans related to the proposed LNG Terminal for the North Coast.

The story of this week follows some previous reporting that had noted the company could cut its capital expenditures in the wake of sliding oil prices, while suggesting that the company may be looking for other partners to reduce its spending on the project.

To this point, that group was the only one of the rather larger Malaysian newspaper industry to suggest such a plan from the Malaysian energy giant, but in a world wired together through the Internet, the rumination of the future quickly spread to British Columbia.

However, as far as the British Columbia government is concerned, the project is moving forward, with only the Federal election and the environmental review underway to be completed.

Yesterday, the Vancouver Sun among other Canadian outlets outlined the BC Government's reply to the Malaysian Reserve's story of earlier this week.

In their article, the Sun notes that the joint ventures five backers held a meeting as recently as last week, where they reviewed their post election and CEAA review planning.

For it's part Petronas had no indication of a pending deferment posted to its website this week (though they do have some new members for their board), nor did the Pacific NorthWest LNG the Canadian firm that is looking to build the terminal near Port Edward, they haven't updated the news section of their website since June 11th.

You can learn more about the Lelu Island proposal from our archive page here.

Update: Late Thursday afternoon, the Globe and Mail's Brent Jang provided a more expansive review of the Petronas position on Pacific NorthWest LNG, you can review that item here.