SW Another company approaching an important milestone, and fortunately a much happier one, is B.C. Montney gas producer Painted Pony Petroleum Ltd. (PPY), down 30 cents to $7.45 on 623,200 shares. It is waiting for AltaGas to finish building a 198-million-cubic-foot-a-day facility in the Townsend area. Painted Pony has access to a minimum of 150 million cubic feet a day during the first year of operations and then full capacity in the second year. Thanks to the plant, it says it can boost its production to 240 million cubic feet equivalent a day (equal to 40,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day) by the end of this year, compared with just 99.6 million cubic feet equivalent a day during the first quarter. Painted Pony has told investors to expect completion of the plant around midyear. Recent investor meetings by AltaGas bear this out. According to a research note last week from analyst Linda Ezergailis of TD Securities (which hosted the meetings), AltaGas says the plant is just about finished.
Another clock that Painted Pony is surely watching has to do with the stalled B.C. LNG (liquefied natural gas) industry, specifically the plans of Malaysia's state-owned Petronas to build an $11-billion LNG export plant in Prince Rupert. Petronas's Pacific NorthWest LNG consortium is seen as one of the frontrunners in the race to build an LNG export plant along the B.C. coast, but its plant has yet to receive federal environmental approval, even though the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency (CEAA) started a review all the way back in April, 2013. The CEAA has delayed the review several times over the years, most recently in March, when it asked Pacific NorthWest to submit more documents. Last week, the agency finally resumed its review, starting a countdown that could (barring further delays) see Ottawa issue a final ruling on the project in late September or early October. A positive ruling would be a pleasant development for Painted Pony and all B.C. Montney gas producers, although Painted Pony has said that its production plans are not based on LNG whatsoever. President and CEO Pat Ward rather memorably told BNN in March that as far as Painted Pony is concerned, LNG is just "the icing on the cake or the peanut butter on the cookie."