WestPac plans headquarters transfer to BC

Company moving office to be closer to engineering and communications teams/

Laura Walz, Editor
Powell River Peak

A company planning to develop a liquefied natural gas (LNG) storage terminal on Texada Island is moving its head office to the Lower Mainland and changing senior management.

WestPac LNG president Mark Butler is stepping down. Stu Leson, vice-president of business development, will fill his position.

WestPac LNG, a Calgary-based private company, has proposed a combined LNG import terminal and natural gas-fired electrical generation facility on the north end of Texada Island. Plans for the $2-billion project include two onshore LNG storage tanks, each with a capacity up to 165,000 cubic metres, and an interconnection with the existing Terasen natural gas pipeline from the mainland to Vancouver Island.

Butler told the Peak the company is moving its office to British Columbia to be closer to both the engineering and communications teams. "I have a number of business and personal circumstances here in Calgary and in Red Deer, so I'm going to stay with the project in a consulting capacity and also as a member of the board," he said. "The project team is going to be the same. We're just going to start wearing some different hats."

The move to the West Coast has been discussed for some time, Butler added. "We have always talked corporately that a made-in-BC project needed to live in BC. This was part of a long-term plan change in terms of the geographic locations of the offices."

Leson's background is in oil and gas with Unocal Corporation. From 1989 to 1994, he was manager of natural gas marketing and storage for Unocal Canada, and from 1994 to 2001, he was vice-president of LNG marketing for Unocal Indonesia, stationed in Jakarta. In 2002, he moved to Houston, where his primary responsibility was the analysis of North American LNG receiving terminal projects as potential markets for Asian LNG supply.

Chuck Childress is the chairman of Texada Action Now (TAN), an organization that is opposed to WestPac's proposal. "When we go to the [Powell River] Regional District, they tell us there is no project," he said. "When we go to Victoria, they tell us there is no project. So, if there is no project, why would WestPac be moving from Calgary to Vancouver? To keep an eye on a nonexistent project?"

WestPac has also compiled a 16-page booklet containing questions and answers about its project. Many of the questions were raised at public meetings held on Texada. "The booklet is our effort to create the questions that were asked and to make sure all of the public, not just on Texada Island, are getting the answers to questions that are being asked," Butler said. "The booklet will be posted verbatim onto our website."

Butler said WestPac has sent the booklet to every mailbox on Texada and to first nations, local governments, provincial agencies and any other group or individual who has expressed interest in the project.

The booklet is a record of public commentary and is part of the formal record of public consultation, said Butler. "It will be provided to the ministry of environment and the Environmental Assessment Office when we start to proceed down the road of environmental assessment," he said.

According to an updated timeline on the company's website, it plans to file a project description with the BC Environmental Assessment Office and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency in early 2009. Construction is anticipated to start in winter 2010 or spring 2011 and take three years.

WestPac's website is www.westpaclng.com.