LNG Canada's $30-Billion Kitimat Expansion Moves Ahead, With $1.2-Billion for Oceans
LNG Canada will proceed with its $30-billion Phase 2 expansion at Kitimat, B.C., Prime Minister Mark Carney confirmed in Vancouver on Sept. 29, 2026.
The company announced its Phase 2 Final Investment Decision on Sept. 28, according to LNG Canada. That decision is the formal commitment to fund and build. The expansion will add two more LNG processing units, known as trains, within its existing Kitimat facility. It is like adding two production lines inside an existing factory. LNG is natural gas cooled to liquid for shipment. LNG Canada has described the expansion as a key national and provincial priority project.
Carney addressed the decision at two public appearances in Vancouver on Tuesday, one focused on energy and one on oceans, according to The Globe and Mail. On energy, he said: "The speed of this project shows that now when Canadians want something built, we get it built."
The project has been in Ottawa's new approvals system for more than a year. Carney named the Phase II expansion in Northern British Columbia as one of the first projects for review under a new major-projects review process in September 2025. The process is a faster federal track for large projects. He said at the time the expansion will help transform Canada into an energy superpower.
At the second event, Carney announced $1.2-billion for ocean safety, protecting marine wildlife and strengthening front-line conservation enforcement. The announcement was made in Vancouver and detailed in a federal release issued Sept. 29. More than $740 million of that amount will be spent over the next four years to strengthen ocean conservation as marine traffic grows, according to the federal release. The Prime Minister's Office said expanding strategic infrastructure along the West Coast will help diversify trade but will place increased pressure on the ocean ecosystem.
During his oceans remarks, Carney said: "We inherited these oceans, and it's our obligation to pass them on better than we found them."
The oceans funding connects to an existing federal-provincial framework. Canada and British Columbia signed a new cooperative prosperity agreement on July 2, 2026. The agreement is a joint plan for economic and environmental cooperation. It includes strengthening protections for coastal ecosystems through the Oceans Protection Plan, the federal program to prevent spills and protect marine areas. Carney said those protections would include preventing oil spills and strengthening marine conservation.
Carney's $1.2-billion ocean conservation announcement came ahead of an expected decision on a West Coast pipeline, according to Global News. Ottawa has not in the verified material linked the two decisions formally.
The broader context here is how two orders of government share this file. Energy exports, marine shipping and spill response cut across federal responsibility for oceans, navigation and interprovincial infrastructure and provincial authority over resource development and coastal management. The sequence pairs a major export approval with a parallel conservation commitment. The cooperative prosperity agreement is the mechanism Carney is favouring to keep Ottawa and Victoria aligned, rather than litigating or legislating around one another.
What to watch next is sequencing and detail. A Final Investment Decision removes commercial uncertainty around Kitimat. The major-projects review designation gives Ottawa a procedural claim that federal assessment moved quickly. The oceans envelope, with a four-year tranche tied to increased marine traffic, gives ministers a concrete item to cite when tanker movements, cumulative effects and enforcement capacity are raised in Parliament, in the B.C. Legislature and in consultations with First Nations.
In practical terms for the pipeline decision still to come, that history frames but does not settle the question. A West Coast pipeline would test the same trade-diversification rationale the Prime Minister's Office used for West Coast strategic infrastructure, and the same ecosystem-pressure acknowledgement behind the oceans funding. The documents to track next are the terms of any pipeline decision, the allocation of the $740-million tranche across safety, science and enforcement, and how the Oceans Protection Plan commitments in the July Canada-B.C. agreement are implemented alongside higher LNG carrier volumes.
