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Posted Jan 10, 2013, 3:11 AM
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Registered User
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Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: White Rock, BC (Metro Vancouver)
Posts: 3,145
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Awhile back I started the thread entitled "Proposed West Coast BC LNG Terminals" in the BC section and the spill-over effects in terms of global energy majors opening up offices in downtown Vancouver is also now becoming apparent, which is always good news. 
Quote:
Energy Offices Flock to Vancouver as Natural Gas Projects Gather Steam
Financial Post
Claudia Cattaneo
Jan 9, 2013
British Columbia’s deep-rooted environmentalism is about to get a much stronger counterpoint as a growing number of energy giants establish a corporate presence on the West Coast.
Chevron Corp., Royal Dutch Shell PLC, Petronas, BG Group, Enbridge Inc., TransCanada Corp., Kinder Morgan have opened offices, are expanding or are planning to set up offices in Vancouver or nearby to oversee the planning of liquefied natural gas (LNG) plants on the northern coast, build pipelines, talk up the benefits of energy development to policy makers, communities and First Nations.
They are joining Houston-based Spectra Energy Corp., until recently the lone energy company with a large presence in Vancouver, a legacy of its takeover of B.C.-grown Westcoast Energy Inc. about a decade ago.
The corporate shift dilutes Calgary’s stature as Canada’s energy capital, but supports British Columbia’s plans for a liquefied natural gas business that could one day rival in size Alberta’s oil sands.
“For a city that doesn’t have a lot of big corporate head offices, we welcome the beefed up corporate presence of the energy patch here,” said Jock Finlayson, executive vice-president of the Vancouver-based Business Council of British Columbia.
“If two or three of these [projects] go ahead, you are looking at by far the largest capital projects in the history of British Columbia, and so these companies are deciding quite prudently that they need to have a presence here on the ground if they are going to be huge investors.”
With many of the companies in hiring mode, their presence offers tangible evidence of the benefits of energy activity, at a time British Columbians are fed a daily diet of news on the risks of infrastructure projects such as Enbridge’s controversial Northern Gateway oil pipeline.
BG Canada opened an office in Vancouver last summer because its LNG plans are B.C.-focused, its environmental consultants and its pipeline partner — Spectra — are based in the city, and it wanted to be seen as a part of the community, said acting president Steve Swaffield.
If the British natural gas giant moves forward with a 3.5-billion-cubic-feet-a day terminal in Prince Rupert, the project team will likely be based in Vancouver.
“We are in the early feasibility stages, but the focus will always be in B.C., so the majority of our people will be B.C.-based,” he said.
San Ramon, Calif.-based Chevron Corp., which announced before Christmas it is taking over as operator and half-equity owner of the Kitimat LNG project, will also open an office in either Vancouver or Victoria, said spokesman Leiff Sollid. The office will be responsible for relations with the B.C. government, and adds to Chevron’s established refining presence in the province.
Shell moved into Vancouver last summer to support its proposed Kitimat-based LNG Canada project, said spokesman David Williams.
“Clearly we recognized that as we progress that project we need to talk to many people in Vancouver and more broadly in British Columbia, and that office helps with that work,” Mr. Williams said. “We have opened a small office there and we are recruiting to fill that office. Quite a bit of the key project work will be done there in terms of engaging with people on shipping, on the LNG facility itself, on the regulatory side of things, on the aboriginal consultation side.”
TransCanada’s office in Vancouver supports its major gas pipeline plans in the province, including the $5-billion pipeline for Progress Energy Resources Corp., owned by Malaysia’s Petronas, that was announced Wednesday. The line will move gas from the North Montney region to Progress’s Pacific Northwest LNG export plant near Prince Rupert.
“Having a dedicated location in Vancouver makes sense for us and it will probably grow,” said spokesman Grady Semmens.
Progress has opened an office of its own in Vancouver and it’s expanding it to house a big part of the project team for the LNG terminal, said president and CEO Mike Culbert. “The entire LNG business is new, it’s an industry that is getting set up,” he said.
“It’s really about getting more people on the ground to get that social licence to operate.”
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http://business.financialpost.com/2013/0...er-as-natural-gas-projects-gather-steam/
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