Event30 June 2025Action

LNG Canada ships its first cargo from Kitimat, BC, bound for Asia

The tanker GasLog Glasgow left LNG Canada's terminal in Kitimat, BC, on 30 June 2025 with the plant's first cargo, bound for South Korea, CBC reported: Canada's first large-scale LNG export. LNG Canada is a joint venture of Shell, Petronas, PetroChina, Mitsubishi and KOGAS, and its first phase is designed to produce 14 million tonnes a year. The US Energy Information Administration put the two trains' capacity at 1.84 billion cubic feet a day and expected the plant to reach full capacity in 2026. Until then, Canada's only export market for its gas had been the United States, by pipeline.

Date

30 June 2025

Kind

Other

Where

British Columbia

Evidence

Action: Something was done: a law switched on, a tariff imposed, money committed. How evidence is weighed

Who

Government of South Korea (subject); LNG Canada (joint venture) (acted)

Sources

• LNG Canada, “First Cargo Puts Canada on the Map of LNG Exporting Nations” (external site), 30 June 2025. source record
• Shell, “First cargo leaves LNG Canada” (external site), 30 June 2025. source record
• CBC News, “Tanker bound for Asia after loading Canada's first cargoes of liquefied natural gas in B.C.” (external site), 30 June 2025. source record
• US EIA, “North America’s LNG export capacity could more than double by 2029” (external site), 16 October 2025. source record

Projects

• LNG Canada Phase 1

Claims that rest on this event

• SupportsOutcome

  If everything planned is built, LNG export capacity roughly triples (from 14 to about 45 million tonnes a year), and LNG would carry about 40% of Canada's gas exports overseas. LNG Canada's Phase 2 took its final investment decision on 29 September 2026: two more trains, doubling the plant from 14 to 28 million tonnes a year, about C$33 billion, with operations expected in the early 2030s. Gas sent to the US by pipeline may dip from 8.6 to 8.0 billion cubic feet a day by 2027, but the journal's model still expects more gas to reach the US by the mid-2030s, because it assumes most gas for new LNG comes from new production.

  LNG Canada's first cargo, bound for Asia, starts Canada's overseas LNG exports from a first phase of 14 million tonnes a year.

• SupportsOutcome

  What the build-out costs the US is leverage, not supply. US leverage rested on Canada having few other buyers: in 2025 about 90% of Canadian crude exports by volume went to the US, the coast took 12.5% of oil export pipeline capacity, and LNG exports had barely started. The loss comes late: new US-bound oil capacity arrives first (2027-29), while most of the capacity to sell elsewhere comes around 2034.

  LNG exports to Asia began, ending Canada's complete reliance on the United States as its only gas export market.

• SupportsTested hypothesis: intent

  In the thought experiment's third foresight test ('Rerouting constraint'), no US action yet limits Canada's ability to sell elsewhere: no measure against its coast projects or named overseas buyers, and no clause on sales to other countries. The closest items are demands, not actions: a right of first refusal on critical minerals and limits on Canada's other trade deals, both refused in August 2026. If the US keeps tolerating the rerouting, that fits 'foreseen and wanted' slightly better than a plain self-interest focused on leverage.

  LNG Canada began shipping to Asia in June 2025, and the journal found no US measure aimed at these exports.

• ContextMethod

  Output is split into projects that don't need the new fast-track laws and projects that depend on them. Only the second group can say anything about the effect of the tariffs, and neither says anything about Washington's intent.

  LNG Canada took its final investment decision in 2018, before the tariffs and the fast-track laws, so it belongs with the projects that don't need the new fast-track laws.

How it bears on the outcome