South Korean bank to provide loan for LNG Canada pipeline

South Korea’s KB Kookmin Bank will lend 240 million Canadian dollars ($171 million) for the construction of a pipeline that will supply gas to the Shell-led LNG Canada project.

KB Kookmin Bank said in a statement that it is the only South Korean lender taking part in the Coastal GasLink project funded by 27 global financial institutions.

Coastal GasLink is building a 667-kilometer-long pipeline worth about $5 billion that will transport natural gas from the Dawson Creek area to the LNG Canada facility being built in Kitimat, British Colombia.

The project is led by TC Energy, a company formerly known as TransCanada.

The pipeline will be able to move 2.1 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas with the potential for delivery of up to 5 bcf/d.

The project also recently secured a loan of up to $500 million from Export Development Canada, the country’s export credit agency.

Coastal GasLink announced a positive final investment decision to build the pipeline following a go-ahead from its partner, LNG Canada, on October 2, 2018.

Besides Shell, LNG Canada partners include Malaysia’s Petronas, PetroChina, Japan’s Mitsubishi Corporation and Kogas of South Korea.

The joint venture of JGC-Fluor Corporation is the project’s engineering, procurement and construction contractor.

LNG Canada will initially include two trains or processing units, that will receive and process natural gas, converting it into LNG ready for shipping.

These two units will have the capacity to produce 14 million tonnes of LNG per year.

The project, worth more than $30 billion, is one of the largest megaprojects in Canadian history.