H-Energy to develop plans for Nova Scotia LNG plant

HALIFAX — The Nova Scotia government has announced that H-Energy is developing plans for its proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant in Melford, Guysborough County.

"This is great news for the development of our province as a natural gas energy hub," said Nova Scotia Energy Minister Andrew Younger. "This would increase opportunities to bring more natural gas through Nova Scotia, providing economic benefits for the province and capitalizing on our export potential. The plant and export terminal could produce 13.5 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas per year — putting Nova Scotia squarely in the international LNG market."

H-Energy, an India-based company, has memorandums of understanding in place with customers for 50 per cent of the output of its planned multi-billion dollar LNG plant and export terminal in Melford.

According to H-Energy managing director Darshan Hiranandani, agreements are in place with companies from India, the Middle East and Europe. This also provides Indian LNG buyers an opportunity to have a back-to-back arrangement as H-Energy is in the process of developing two LNG regasification terminals in India.

In addition, talks are continuing with a number of South Asian companies.

The agreements advance the proposed LNG facility in Melford, which could become operational by 2020.

Younger said he was pleased that H-Energy has begun the early stages of front-end engineering and design work on the Melford project. This work could be finalized by the end of January 2015.

H-Energy also plans to ask the National Energy Board to grant an export permit for the project in October. The company will begin the environmental approval process in the near future.

The project would be constructed in three phases with the first liquefaction train of 4.5 MMTPA (million metric tonnes per annum) at an estimated cost of $3.3 billion coming online in 2020.

H-Energy is owned by India’s Hiranandani Group, which is a diversified business group with a presence in the real estate, energy, education, healthcare, hospitality, entertainment and retail sectors.