Column: China’s commodity import trend driven by prices, not economy
China's imports of major commodities are often viewed through the prism of the performance of, and outlook for, the world's second-biggest economy.
Vancouver-based Casino Mining Corp., a subsidiary of Western Copper and Gold, and Selwyn Chihong Mining Ltd., have signed a memorandum of understanding with Calgary-based Ferus Natural Gas Fuels Inc. to build a $200 million LNG plant in Fort Nelson, British Columbia.
The idea is to power the Casino copper-gold mine in the Yukon using LNG instead of diesel to reduce costs and eliminate 140,000 tonnes per year of C02 emissions over the current 22-year mine life.
The same principle applies to Selwyn’s zinc-lead mine, which straddles the Yukon-Northwest Territories. The company believes that using LNG instead of diesel will avoid 115,000 tonnes per year of CO2 over the mine’s estimated 11-year life.
The project is a two-phase LNG plant that will produce 300,000 US gallons per day of LNG, equivalent in energy to approximately 175,000 gallons per day of diesel.
Once built, the LNG will be trucked roughly 800 kilometres to the mine sites. “The Fort Nelson area was strategically chosen to minimize the cost of transporting the LNG to the mines, contributing to supply reliability and strong project economics,” Casino explained in a statement.
According to the Whitehorse Daily Star, Ferus expects that once the supply chain has been established, others interested in saving money and reducing greenhouse gasses will also consider switching to liquefied natural gas.
2 Comments
Altaf
They are going for a noble cause (of replacing diesel with LPG) but only doing half the job.
Instead of trucking the LPG for 800 km, they should look at laying a pipeline to reduce transport cost as well as reduce further emissions.
patentbs
This could work. The project is small and the LoM is short so it is a short sighted affair. The hope is that others will step up to use a local recourse and extend the life of the LNG plant to over the 20 years. It will be some time before gas prices move to a level that make this plant uneconomic. Look for other small LNG plants for fleet purposes.