Black Press
BEIJING CHINA—Kitimat Clean Ltd and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, China’s largest bank, signed Memorandums of Understanding Thursday for what could become the largest investment in B.C. in the province's history.
The MOUs will assure securing and oversight of funding for a $25 billion refinery proposed by David Black for installation at Kitimat on the B.C. coast.
The principal provisions of the MOUs state that ICBC will be Chinese financial advisor to Kitimat Clean and cooperate in the financing of the proposed Kitimat refinery and associated pipelines and other elements.
Chinese companies will be involved in the engineering and construction of the refinery. Up to 100 per cent of the output from the refinery is planned for sale to Asian markets, including China and India.
Majority control of all the proposed Canadian businesses will remain in Canada and there will be 6,000 construction jobs created for British Columbians over five years, and 3,000 permanent jobs.
More MOUs between Kitimat Clean and Chinese companies are anticipated in the near future.
“A great advantage of the refinery is that it will prevent the shipment of bitumen in tankers off BC’s mid-coast," said Black, owner of the Black Press Newspapers group. "In addition, it will reduce global greenhouse gas emissions because it will replace refineries elsewhere that are built to less stringent environmental standards.”
The project will include a state-of-the-art, world scale oil refinery at Kitimat. It may also include a pipeline between Edmonton and Kitimat, a marine terminal, and a fleet of tankers for the refined fuels. The total cost could amount to $25 billion.
When completed, tt will be B.C.'s largest investment. It will also provide far more permanent jobs than any other investment has done and generate very large tax revenues for the government.
Liu Yanping, deputy head of corporate banking department, and Huang Jifa, deputy head of investment banking department, signed on behalf of ICBC.
“We are very pleased to be working toward a comprehensive agreement to finance a refinery in Canada which is planning to export refined fuels to China and other Asian countries in the future,” they said in a statement.