OREANDA-NEWS. Asian LPG demand should be sufficient to support additional propane exports from western Canada as well as strong US volumes, AltaGas chief executive David Cornhill said today.

AltaGas recently filed an application with Canada's National Energy Board for a 25-year propane export license, and has signed a lease and related agreements with Ridley Terminals to build a 1.2mn t/yr propane export terminal near Prince Rupert, British Colombia. AltaGas expects to reach a final investment decision on the project this year, targeting to initiate operations in 2018.

"Ridley should have no bearing whatsoever on cannibalizing liquids as it relates to the Gulf coast," Cornhill told analysts on the company's earnings call. "Producers alone in western Canada are thirsting for an exit."

The Ridley terminal would add another option for western Canadian NGL producers seeking an outlet for the oversupplied market. Canadian NGLs are currently exported from another terminal in Ferndale, Washington.

There is plenty of room for new entrants to the global LPG market, Cornhill said.

"From a global scale, really with what we're looking at Ridley it's a small percentage of the global liquids that ship on the open ocean," he said. "Right now we're not seeing anything that would suggest we'd see a negative headwind to exporting liquids out of Ridley."

The company today said it would suspend efforts to construct an LNG export project in the region.