Rotary Club of Ladner members joined Ladner Business Association members for a visit to the Fortis BC facility in Delta's Tilbury Industrial Park on May 22, 2025. Hosted by Ladner Rotarian and Fortis BC Community Relations Officer Joanne Hunton-Sehdev and a team of her colleagues, visitors learned about the current production and storage capacity of the Fortis BC LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas) facility on the banks of the Fraser River's north arm, and future plans for a jetty out to a loading facility for ships to transport to regional and international markets.
LNG is natural gas cooled to -160°C liquid form, reducing its volume be 600 times, for non-pressurized storage or economical transportation over great distances in some cases.
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Transportation is by truck hauling large tanks on trailers, and tanks inside conventional shipping containers, to domestic markets only from this facility. The LNG shipping tank is like a giant thermos bottle, keeping the contents in liquefied form for over a week. It is not pressurized. If there were to be an accident and the tank was ruptured in some way the natural gas would simply escape as vapour albeit flammable, unlike an oil spill with all its ground and water contaminants.
At sea, if LNG escaped from a tank or if a ship sank, the LNG would eventully escape as vapour and would not create any residue as there might be with an oil spill. With the jetty, planned but going through several years of environmental assessments, the LNG can be shipped to more distant markets and LNG productiion capacity could increase.
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| A large ball compared to a small one demonstrates the 600x volume reduction of natural gas to liquefied form | |
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| LNG in a beaker with a hollow rod inserted and a balloon attached demonstrates the expansion of the balloon as the LNG steadily warms and expands as vapour filling the balloon. | The expanding, escaping vapour is also shown feeding a flame. |
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