Read this article from the Financial Post on the race to build gas pipelines and up to six liquid natural gas (LNG) processing facilities in BC to ship gas to the Asian market. (Jan. 28, 2012)

KITIMAT, B.C. — In a climate of growing hostility toward energy industry development across North America, Timothy Wall, president of the Canadian unit of Houston-based Apache Corp., took the road less travelled to the heart of Kitimat.

He flew multiple times to the 9,000-resident town on the northern British Columbia coast to ensure support for his liquefied natural gas plans.

He unleashed a team to explain the challenges and the benefits.

He won over the local aboriginals, the Haisla Nation, by meeting with them, acknowledging their rights, making them his landlords.

“We had a big push … trying to make this a win-win for everybody,” Mr. Wall, who is originally from Houston, said in an interview.

“We told the stakeholders in the Kitimat area that there would be challenges, but that we would work through them. That with everybody pulling in the right way, we would get there.”

The two-year effort paid off with widespread community support for Apache’s plan to pipe natural gas from fields at the other end of the Rockies, build a terminal down the canal in Bish Cove to liquefy it, and transport it by tanker to Asia.

All this at a time the same community was giving another major project, the Northern Gateway oil sands pipeline, a rough ride.

Read more: http://business.financialpost.com/2012/01/28/the-race-to-china/?__lsa=0f08bb71