Canada's first major LNG export terminal is planning to double its capacity, operator LNG Canada confirmed in a report carried by news aggregator inkl.

The Kitimat, British Columbia facility on the province's North Coast marks the country's entry into the global seaborne gas trade. An expansion would roughly double the site's output, extending Canada's reach into Asian LNG markets just as competition for long-term supply contracts intensifies among Atlantic and Gulf Coast exporters.

What does the expansion involve?

The doubling plan points to a second development phase at the coastal terminal, which sits at the end of the Coastal GasLink pipeline feeding gas from northeast British Columbia's Montney and other Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin supply.

LNG Canada's shareholders include Shell, Petronas, PetroChina, Mitsubishi and Kogas. A sanction of the expansion would hinge on pipeline capacity, contractor availability and buyer appetite for offtake — the standard gates for any Phase 2 LNG decision in the current cost environment.

Why does it matter for Western Canadian gas?

A doubled terminal would pull materially more Montney and basin gas west to tidewater rather than south to saturated US markets. For producers, that means incremental demand at a time when US export growth increasingly absorbs domestic Canadian volumes.

For the Kitimat region and British Columbia more broadly, a second construction phase would extend the employment and contracting cycle that Phase 1 established, though workforce and cost details of the expansion remain undisclosed.

What is the watch item?

The item to track is a formal final investment decision. Until LNG Canada and its partners sanction the expansion with committed offtake and a construction timeline, the doubling remains a stated plan rather than a sanctioned project. Watch for FID timing, buyer announcements and any regulatory filings in British Columbia.