Free Gas! Alberta Market Looks Forward to Shell Export Project

  • Company, partners reach final investment decision on terminal
  • U.S. competition has pummeled Western Canadian gas prices
Photographer: Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg
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An export terminal on Canada’s west coast may eventually rescue one of the cheapest markets for natural gas in North America -- so cheap that sometimes the fuel price falls below zero.

Royal Dutch Shell Plc and its four partners have agreed to invest in the $31 billion LNG Canada project, according to a statementBloomberg Terminal from Shell on Tuesday. The decision to build the export terminal provides a much-needed outlet for gas in a region battered by competition from U.S. drillers, which has created bottlenecks so severe that prices can occasionally go negative.