Page 11 - NorthAmOil Week 11

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LNG Canada cuts workforce in half amid pandemic
BRITISH COLUMBIA
THE Royal Dutch Shell-led LNG Canada con- sortium and its engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractor, JGC Fluor, said this week that they would stop flying work- ers to the terminal’s site in Kitimat, British Columbia.
The move, which comes in response to the coronavirus pandemic, will cut the workforce on the project roughly in half. While the BC region where LNG Canada is being built has not had any cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, the consortium has indi- cated it wants to help local communities deal with the outbreak while containing its spread. BC as a whole had 231 cases of COVID-19 as of March 18. A state of emergency has been declared in the province.
The LNG Canada consortium – which also includes Petronas, PetroChina, Mitsubishi and Korea Gas (KOGAS) – said it was implement- ing a mandatory work-from-home policy for non-business critical positions. It is also defer- ring many non-essential work activities at the Kitimat site for the time being.
LNG Canada said essential work would continue on the project for now. This includes seasonal activities that must take place within regulatory windows, activities that have already started and need to be finished to safely secure the site and the unloading of material delivery vessels at the port.
“This work will be conducted with additional
safety, health and hygiene precautions that fol- low recommended social distancing protocols and all other current recommendations for best practices,” LNG Canada said in a statement.
However, if necessary, staff numbers could be further cut to levels required only to maintain site security and environmental controls.
LNG Canada noted that travel by staff and contractors to other countries – including China, South Korea and Italy, which have been hit particularly hard by the coronavirus – has been restricted for the past month.
The move to cut staff at the Kitimat site marks a further setback for the project after a rocky start to the year. Protests by the hereditary chiefs of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation against the Coastal GasLink pipeline, which will supply LNG Canada with feedstock gas, spilled over into country-wide blockades of railways and other infrastructure in solidarity in mid-Feb- ruary. The pipeline project had previously been uncontroversial, but its escalation caused major disruptions to Canadian rail transport. While the Wet’suwet’en chiefs and provincial and fed- eral ministers agreed to a tentative deal on land use, the chiefs continued to oppose the pipeline being built through their territory.
Now, the coronavirus outbreak threatens to delay further progress on the talks – as well as on construction of the LNG Canada terminal – as entire regions and countries go into lockdown to battle the disease.™
If necessary, staff numbers could be further cut to levels required only to maintain site security and environmental controls.
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