Prince George, B.C.- It’s a project that has yet to be approved, but unlike other proposals that look to export a fossil fuel out of Prince Rupert the AltaGas project hopes to make new use out of an old site.

Last week, the company announced it had entered a  deal with  Ridley Terminals to  sublease the property Ridley  leases from the Prince Rupert Port Authority.

The plan calls for a  half billion  dollar  export terminal to ship  propane to Asian markets.

“The  propane gas would be extracted from the field  then processed  and  railed  from the field in north east British Columbia and Alberta  out to Ridley Terminals”  says John Lowe, Executive Vice President Corporate Development for  AltaGas.

That’s key,  no  pipeline issue here, and the site itself  is a brownfield as  it’s where coal had previously been shipped. “Coal shipments are in decline” says Lowe “So this is a great way for the Port to diversify its product offering.”

Although  the  proposed export terminal would be located on an existing industrial  site,  there will still  need to  be  an environmental assessment done  says Lowe “On the permitting side, because it’s on Federal land, it falls under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, and consultation  with First Nations is definitely  what we will be proceeding with.”

There is already an existing marine jetty, “It’s a brownfield project so we don’t see any additional impacts because we’re using  what we already have.”  Those factors have AltaGas predicting it  could start shipping the propane as early as 2018.

” We  would see about 250 jobs during  the construction phase and about 40 jobs once it starts operations.  Those are new jobs, and it also helps sustain  the existing jobs at the port.”

Lowe says construction will see  the development of a rail loading facility,   storage facilities and chilling facilities  to turn the gas to liquid  at  minus 42 degrees centigrade,”You can compare that to LNG  which  liquefies at minus 160 degrees centigrade, so it’s much easier to  get to  that somewhat balmy  minus 42 temperature.”

Lowe says the energy source to  chill the gas will be  electricity although there will be some small  on site generation  fired by natural gas.

AltaGas has yet to file  an application for an environmental assessment, Lowe says that will happen in the next quarter.

There have been some discussions already  with First Nations, “I think they( discussions) have been positive, because the project is on existing industrialized land.”