Canada’s Pieridae Energy said on Thursday it postponed a final investment decision to build the Goldboro LNG export plant in Nova Scotia due to the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.
The Candian company pushed back the decision beyond September 30, 2020.
Pieridae previously expected to take a decision to build the $10 billion project in the third quarter of 2020.
It planed to start producing LNG between November 2024 and May 2025.
Pieridae’s chief executive Alfred Sorensen said market conditions and the global fallout from Covid-19 have impacted the company’s ability to make a decision this fall.
Pieridae said it would issue an update once Covid-19 conditions improve and markets stabilize.
The Goldboro LNG facility will have two trains with a combined production capacity of 9.6 million tonnes per year.
The company expects to build the LNG facility for 56 months while employing about 4,500 local workers during peak construction.
Pieridae has a 20-year agreement with German utility Uniper for all of the volumes from the first Goldboro train starting between November 30, 2024 and May 31, 2025.
Pieridae said it is negotiating with Uniper to extend the final investment decision deadline to June 2021 and “believes it will obtain this extension.”