JOGMEC Provides Finance to Canadian Shale Project

Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation (JOGMEC) will provide  equity financing to Inpex Gas British Columbia Ltd. (IGBC), which, jointly established by Inpex Corporation and JGC Corporation, has acquired a 40% participating interest in British Columbia shale gas assets.

The interest was acquired by IGBC from Nexen in August following an in-principle agreement announced in November 2011. The shale acreage are the Horn River, Cordova and Liard basins of northeast British Columbia.

While the Horn River gas production has already come on-stream, the full-scale development is to significantly expand the production capacity.   IGBC and Nexen will also seek the opportunity to export the shale gas based Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) to East Asia including Japan. It is expected that this project will  accelerate the  increase and diversification of LNG sources, and consequently reinforce Japan’s energy security.