Rio Tinto sells Kitimat wharf to LNG Canada for $576 million

Rio Tinto completed the lease and sale of a wharf and land in Kitimat to LNG Canada for a consideration of $576 million (about CAD$760 million). LNG has also agreed to build a replacement wharf for Rio’s export shipments of aluminum from the B.C. Works smelter.

LNG Canada is a joint venture of Shell, Petronas, PetroChina, Mitsubishi and Kogas. Discussions of the various options for the wharf began in 2014.

The B.C. Works has been a major presence in British Columbia since the smelter was commissioned in 1954. The smelter has been modernized using the proprietary AP40 smelting technology and began production in 2015. Emissions have been cut in half, and capacity grew about 48% to 420,000 tonnes per year without enlarging the footprint of the plant.

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