100 jobs in year 1, growing to 400
New multi-million dollar plant will manufacture cylinders to transport compressed natural gas to market
By JUDY MYRDEN Business Reporter
The Sheet Harbour Industrial Park will be home to a new multimillion-dollar manufacturing facility employing hundreds of workers to build cylinders to carry compressed natural gas around the world, it was announced Thursday.
The planned facility is related to a method of transporting stranded natural gas on ships in fibre-reinforced plastic pressure vessels.
The project will involve Trans Ocean Gas Ltd. of St. John’s and its partners, in collaboration with Atlantic Steelworks Ltd. of Sheet Harbour, in the manufacturing of fibre-reinforced plastic pressure vessels to transport compressed natural gas by ship and tractor-trailer.
"This is truly an Atlantic Canadian technology that will create long-term manufacturing jobs for the people of Atlantic Canada," Steven Campbell, Trans Ocean Gas president, said Thursday in a news release.
Carl Nelson, president of Atlantic Steelworks, said the facility will require 100 new jobs to begin with, and the workforce is expected to grow to 400-plus within three years.
"It’s great news," said Mr. Nelson, adding that he signed a memorandum of understanding with Trans Ocean several years ago.
The 100,000-square-foot fabrication plant is expected to open in 2007 and to operate for at least 30 years.
Modified vessels will transport compressed natural gas to market from offshore gas fields that are now inaccessible.
Husky Energy of Calgary is looking at alternative transportation for its White Rose project, about 350 kilometres southeast of St. John’s.
Trans Ocean Gas, a privately owned natural gas technology company, holds the patents on the concept of using the containers on vessels to transport compressed natural gas by ship and tractor-trailer.
The company and its main partner, Composites Atlantic Ltd. of Lunenburg, will be testing prototypes in Sheet Harbour starting this fall at Atlantic Steelworks’ facility in Sheet Harbour.
Full certification of the Trans Ocean Gas CNG method is expected by early next year, the news release said.
The concept of transporting stranded natural gas has caught the attention of Keltic Petrochemicals Inc. of Halifax. Keltic has a $4-billion petrochemical facility and liquefied gas terminal planned for the Eastern Shore, which is to be in operation, pending regulatory approvals, in late 2009. In the future, there could be an opportunity for Keltic to supply the Sheet Harbour project with plastic resin required to produce the liners of the plastic pressure vessels, Mr. Nelson said.
( jmyrden@herald.ca)
Copyright Halifax Herald
www.herald.ca
’This is truly an Atlantic Canadian technology that will create long-term manufacturing jobs for the people of Atlantic Canada.’
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