Canada’s first major liquefied natural gas (LNG) export plant, on the B.C. coast, has been having problems with a key piece of equipment since the facility fired up in late 2024. The companies behind the project, a consortium of foreign-owned corporations, have said it will take three years to fix the problem — a timeline experts have questions about. 

Earlier this year, The Narwhal revealed LNG Canada has been flaring, or burning off, more than 15 times the amount of gas its permits allow. Internal documents obtained by The Narwhal found this unexpected increase is due to an “integrity issue” with one of its flare stacks. For several months, residents of Kitimat, B.C., have been voicing concerns with the intermittent 90-metre-high flames, noise and air quality issues due to the increased flaring.

LNG Canada has been flaring up to 15 times more gas than expected, documents reveal

To understand why this is happening and what it could mean for residents of the coastal community, The Narwhal spoke to legal, policy and engineering experts. They speculate the three-year timeline is more likely a financial decision for LNG Canada, combined with a lack of enforcement by the BC Energy Regulator, the provincial agency tasked with regulating energy resource activities.

“Nobody wants a bunch of flaring at these kinds of volumes,” Matthew Johnson, the scientific director of the Energy and Emissions Research Laboratory at Carleton University, said. 

LNG Canada told the BC Energy Regulator it needed to flare an additional 170,000 cubic metres of gas daily to mitigate the issue, which would produce roughly 430 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per day — equal to driving a gasoline-powered car roughly 1.5 million kilometres. The regulator has told The Narwhal the actual average of gas flared due to the issue was even higher, averaging more than 205,000 cubic metres per day over the summer and early fall.

Flaring burns off excess gas, such as methane, produced at the plant when liquefied natural gas is processed. That waste gas is sent up a metal tube that stands more than a hundred metres high and ignited by a pilot light, converting the raw gas into carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide — among other potential gases — and water vapour. If the flare isn’t designed correctly, the gas may not make it to the pilot flame. As a result, more gas has to be used to increase the pressure to reach that flame.

To compensate for an “integrity issue” with its equipment, LNG Canada has been burning significantly more gas than planned, according to documents obtained through freedom of information legislation. Photo: CCTV footage / BC Energy Regulator

Johnson wouldn’t speculate on the specific issue or its fix without seeing all of the technical documents, but questioned why LNG Canada didn’t appear to be able, or willing, to fix the problem sooner. Other mechanical engineers The Narwhal spoke to suggested the delay is likely a financial decision rather than a manufacturing one: shutting down the facility to replace the equipment would likely be more costly than continuing to flare gas that could be sold.

A spokesperson from LNG Canada responded to questions about the three-year timeline by referring back to a previous statement emailed to The Narwhal in mid-January. It stated LNG Canada is focused on safety and, as the facility is in early operations phase, flaring is a normal occurrence. It noted disruptions will be reduced during “regular operations.” 

“We continue to meet regularly with community members, First Nations, local stakeholders and government agencies to listen and respond to any concerns raised about our activities. LNG Canada extends its continued appreciation to the Kitimat community and to the Haisla Nation for their continued support,” the spokesperson said.  

Johnson still questions the three-year timeline. “We should pay attention to this issue, and should try to force them to get this under control,” he said. Johnson is especially worried about what has been reported about the observations and experiences of Kitimat residents.

“Anecdotes about sooty films on cars, if true, would be especially concerning,” he said, regardless of whether the flare was operating properly or not.

Sleepless nights, toxic smoke: life beside Canada’s first LNG export plant

The BC Energy Regulator maintains “there have not been any measurements in the Kitimat Valley in excess of the B.C. Ambient Air Quality Objective metrics attributable to LNG Canada’s operations.” It referred The Narwhal to publicly available data. However, since learning about the issue in April, the regulator has required LNG Canada to submit daily reports related to elevated flaring and the presence of black smoke.

‘It’d be nice to have some transparency’

It was never a secret that LNG Canada would be one of the province’s largest polluters. Project documents produced in 2014 include estimates that, once complete, the facility will emit roughly four million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent annually for at least 25 years. Most of the project’s emissions are expected to come from its turbines and acid gas incinerators — not flaring.

B.C. rules require flares to convert 98 per cent of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, to carbon dioxide, though Johnson said there’s no reliable way to independently verify how much is burnt off in real time.

Neither the B.C. Environmental Assessment Office, which was responsible for approving the greenhouse gas management plan for the project, nor the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada, responsible for making sure the project adheres to the environmental protection and impact mitigation conditions under which the project was approved, responded to questions of when or if they had been informed of the integrity issue.

LNG Canada was approved by the provincial and federal governments to emit roughly four million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per year during operations. Those approvals do not account for equipment issues like the current problem, which is creating significant additional emissions. Photo: Marty Clemens / The Narwhal

The Impact Assessment Agency of Canada specified in an email that one of the major concerns for flaring was the impact on migratory birds. One of the conditions for LNG Canada was to limit flaring to “what is necessary for maintenance or emergency situations.” In LNG Canada’s 2024-2025 annual report, released in April, the company listed no malfunctions had occurred during the reporting year.

LNG Canada’s first phase was always expected to increase B.C.’s total emissions by about 6.6 per cent, according to the 2015 assessment report by the B.C. Environmental Assessment Office. With the additional flaring due to the integrity issue, the emissions are 4.5 per cent higher than anticipated, based on the flare data provided to the regulator. 

Despite the additional gas being flared, it’s still a fraction of what will be shipped and sold from LNG Canada: an estimated 14 million tonnes of gas per year. Choosing to prioritize profits might be a “pragmatic decision and maybe that’s the correct decision,” Johnson said, “But it’d be nice to have some transparency.”

BC Energy Regulator inspected LNG Canada when flaring issue was present, found it ‘in compliance’

Public records on the BC Energy Regulator’s compliance and enforcement website show just two inspections of LNG Canada since the flaring issue was identified: one in February 2025, three months after the company identified the integrity issue but two months before the company informed the regulator. That inspection was marked “in compliance,” and another in August was listed simply as “inspected.”

To date, the regulator has issued no penalties, no inspection reports and no formal non-compliance findings. Last summer, the regulator recategorized the additional flaring from “non-routine,” a designation that allows for as much flaring as needed in emergency situations, to “routine,” meaning the company was required to submit daily non-compliance reports for exceeding the permit limit, internal documents showed.

The BC Energy Regulator has not issued any penalties to LNG Canada for its additional flaring activities. Photo: Marty Clemens / The Narwhal

“What you’ve discovered regarding LNG Canada is the latest example of the persistent (and frankly disgraceful) non-enforcement of environmental law in Canada against industrial polluters,” David R. Boyd, a professor of law, policy and sustainability at the University of British Columbia, told The Narwhal by email. Boyd recently co-authored a report examining air pollution enforcement across Canada, which found governments often rely on “co-operative and non-responsive” approaches and rarely impose penalties on repeat offenders. 

“Canada and B.C. governments pay lip service to the widely accepted polluter-pays principle but rarely apply it in practice,” he told The Narwhal. “Large corporations frequently break environmental laws but are rarely penalized for doing so.” 

A spokesperson for the BC Energy Regulator told The Narwhal the daily reports filed by LNG Canada are because the flaring is “not consistent” with the facility’s permits, using that term instead of the term “non-compliant.” In order for the activities to be found non-compliant, they have to be identified in an inspection by the regulator and then documented and investigated. 

“It seems very much the kind of thing that the regulator and the permitting conditions were designed to prohibit,” Amanda Bryant, manager of the Pembina Institute’s oil and gas program, said. “They’ve got the tools. I think it’s about willingness to escalate and willingness to enforce.”

The regulator did not specify whether the consortium would be facing any penalties for the permit violations for flaring, but noted “an enforcement action could occur at any time in a three-year period following the date of discovery if the facts of an investigation support compliance action.”

However, that would also mean three years of emissions before a potential penalty is levied. “It’s really difficult to see how waiting three years to actually solve the problem is in the public interest,” Bryant said.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

In the fall of 2024, LNG Canada fired up its flare in Kitimat, B.C., for the first time, burning off gas to test its systems. By December, company officials knew something was wrong.

Residents were also concerned, but had little explanation as 90-metre-high flames lit up the night sky and a deep roaring sound permeated the town.

More than a year later, complaints escalated enough that Kitimat District council sat down for a special meeting with Teresa Waddington, the deputy chief operating officer at LNG Canada. About an hour into the meeting, councillor Terry Marleau asked specifically about flare tips. The response from Waddington was jumbled.

“Uh, I’d say we’re, we’re reviewing the flare tips design,” she said. “We are looking long term at what else could we do other than just reduce flaring in order to make sure that we get to a better place.”  

A couple of minutes later, Marleau leaned into the mic: “So, is there an issue with the flare stacks themselves?” 

“It’s part of the learning curve of new equipment,” Waddington replied. “So on one hand, you know, great that we brought in a technology that gets such high levels of incineration, which results in less slippage of gas, which means you have lower [greenhouse gas emissions] overall, but on the same note, it’s not perfectly working.”

Just a few kilometres away from the nearest residential neighbourhood, LNG Canada had been feeding gas into its flaring system by a magnitude of more than 15 times the typical amount to compensate for what was described as an “integrity issue.” 

Flaring from LNG Canada has impacted Kitimat residents’ lives for more than a year. Until now, the public has been unaware that the size of the flame increased due to issues with the facility’s equipment. Photo: Marty Clemens / The Narwhal

Flaring is the burning of excess or waste gas produced during operations. Methane and other gases that escape the Kitimat facility during processing are sent up a metal tube that stands 122 metres high, where they meet a pilot flame and ignite, converting the raw gas into carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and water vapour. There are also often additional gases such as nitrous oxide, sulfur dioxide, volatile organic compounds and particulates released during the process. 

It’s a necessary safety protocol — if the flare is not designed correctly for the operating environment, the gas may not make it to the pilot flame and instead the flare can creep down the tube and melt the infrastructure. The solution is to increase the pressure, increase the volume of gas and increase the size of the flame. If all the gas is not fully combusted by the pilot, black smoke appears.

The Narwhal reviewed more than 2,000 pages of documents released through freedom of information legislation about the flaring issue in Kitimat. They showed how LNG Canada officials were discussing the flaring issues internally — and that they waited approximately four months to tell the provincial energy regulator. 

We also spoke with several industry insiders, former employees and local residents and analyzed publicly available permits and other government documents to piece together a timeline of events and impacts on the community. The documents reveal regulator and industry officials grappled with the issue for months while community members and local politicians asked questions about the flaring, some complaining about excessive noise and others expressing concerns about potential toxic emissions, black smoke and particulate matter. 

Among the documents is one prepared by the BC Energy Regulator, a government agency that oversees the oil and gas sector and other industries. It detailed an “emerging integrity concern related to one of LNG Canada’s flares” in April 2025, and noted LNG Canada said the issue would take three years to be resolved. 

In the meantime, the facility was “routing additional gas” to the flare to mitigate the problem, according to the document. The system should be fine to operate by burning 11,000 cubic metres of gas per day, but due to the issue it would need to burn at least 170,000 cubic metres daily, the document stated. Burning the extra gas would result in “a noticeable impact in the community with respect to noise, light and visual disturbance,” according to the regulator’s internal briefing note.

Internal government documents detailed how LNG Canada was feeding additional gas to its flaring system, resulting in a “noticeable impact” to noise, light and visual disturbance.

When asked about this document, a spokesperson with the regulator confirmed awareness of the issue and said the average numbers were even higher. LNG Canada reported flaring an average of “approximately 205,000 cubic metres per day between July 1 and Nov. 30, 2025,” the spokesperson said via email. 

The email included detailed data and showed that on Sept. 1, 2025, LNG Canada flared 1,708,649 cubic metres of gas, making it the highest single day, according to the data. 

The spokesperson did not answer questions about whether the government agency communicated the problem with flaring equipment to the public, instead explaining LNG Canada had “fully mitigated” the integrity issue by “ensuring additional gas is flowed through the flare tip facilitating appropriate combustion.” The regulator spokesperson added LNG Canada is required to notify residents and local authorities “regarding certain flaring events.”

The Narwhal asked LNG Canada several detailed questions about the integrity issue, including why it did not appear to communicate clearly with members of the public, but a spokesperson with the consortium declined to answer.

“The LNG Canada facility has been commissioning and is currently in its early operations phase,” the spokesperson wrote in an emailed statement. “Flaring during commissioning and early operations is a normal occurrence in any LNG asset. In regular operations, flaring activities and associated noise reduce significantly.”

BC Energy Regulator officials kept the flaring issue quiet for more than six months

Kitimat sits at the end of a long fiord, surrounded by mountains and subject to extreme weather. Dramatic shifts in air pressure, high winds and other local environmental factors exacerbate the problems LNG Canada faced with its flare. As The Narwhal previously reported, community members have documented black plumes of smoke from the flare and some residents living close to the facility have said their yards, houses and vehicles are often left covered in a thin film of black residue.

Kitimat residents living close to LNG Canada reported seeing black plumes of smoke from the flare and said the noise from the facility was disrupting their daily lives. Photo: Marty Clemens / The Narwhal

Sleepless nights, toxic smoke: life beside Canada’s first LNG export plant

According to the documents, LNG Canada — a consortium of foreign-owned companies led by Shell — first reported non-compliance with government permits in May 2025, citing increased emissions were required to mitigate the integrity concern. The company said a replacement part, called a flare tip, would be needed and it could take up to three years to fully integrate the new equipment, but interim changes could be made. The BC Energy Regulator responded, asking the company to clarify the environmental and health risks of any modifications and said the company might also need to apply to amend its Air Waste Discharge Permit.

In July, the regulator wrote to LNG Canada officials saying the company was on the hook for the additional emissions and needed to fix the problem. The reason, it explained, was that because the additional flaring was for the purpose of “long-term integrity management,” it was not considered a “process upset,” a designation that would exempt it from permit limits. The regulator also required the company to report any emissions exceedances. After the consortium successfully sent its first shipment of LNG overseas in late June 2025, the regulator also issued a requirement for LNG Canada to file daily reports and updates.

The regulator told The Narwhal the consortium filed six “monthly self-disclosures [related] to document flaring which is not consistent” with the facility’s permits and noted it has not issued any penalties for non-compliance. 

“The [BC Energy Regulator] does not disclose information with respect to any ongoing investigations that may be underway, but to date, no penalties have been issued to LNG Canada.”

The regulator also noted it ordered LNG Canada to contract a third-party assessment of air quality in July, which concluded “no measured adverse impacts to air quality from the increased flaring rate.”

“The [BC Energy Regulator] is engaging with LNG Canada to minimize flaring rates from all facility flares,” the spokesperson added.

Documents obtained by The Narwhal through freedom of information legislation reveal BC Energy Regulator officials were aware of problems with LNG Canada’s equipment in May 2025.

The Narwhal asked LNG Canada why it didn’t communicate the problems with the flare tip to the public. We also asked for clarification on the nature of the issue, its impacts on operations and the community, including noise, emissions and other issues raised by community members. The Narwhal asked what had been done to ensure residents were kept informed about the risks posed by faulty or inadequate equipment. 

LNG Canada did not directly answer these questions.

“We continue to remain focused on safely operating the facility and minimizing disruptions to the community,” the spokesperson wrote, adding the 37th shipment is scheduled to depart in the coming days.

“We continue to meet regularly with community members, First Nations, local stakeholders and government agencies to listen and respond to any concerns raised about our activities. LNG Canada extends its continued appreciation to the Kitimat community and to the Haisla Nation for their continued support.”

Between September 2024 and January 2026, LNG Canada posted more than 27 notifications of flaring events on its website and social media, some preparing the community for weeks or months of flaring.

“Flaring is a provincially regulated safety measure that ensures the controlled, efficient combustion of natural gas during specific operational phases,” LNG Canada regularly said in these notifications. “It is a critical part of safely operating a facility of this scale and is not expected to be routine during regular operation.”

But the consortium was not telling the public why the flare was so big nor explaining why so many “unplanned” flaring events were occurring. In early November 2025, for example, LNG Canada published a notification warning residents flaring would extend beyond the “originally anticipated timeframe.” It noted this would mean more “intermittent” noise and more emissions, without explaining why. 

Around the same time, the consortium offered to temporarily relocate some residents who had expressed concerns about the noise and emissions, if they agreed to “not make any complaints or raise any concerns or objections with respect to LNG Canada, the LNG facility or the works with any third parties, including but not limited to members of the media, the [BC Energy Regulator] or the District of Kitimat” related to flaring activities.

Don’t complain, get paid: Kitimat resident offered thousands from LNG Canada 

But complaints from residents continued to come in.

Just a few months ago, in that late November 2025 council meeting, Waddington addressed questions about the flaring from Marleau and other members of council. She was accompanied by a sound analyst hired to monitor ambient noise over Kitimat.

There had been more than 30 complaints from the town’s residents about unexpected noise since the LNG export facility started flaring excess gas a year earlier, Waddington said at the meeting. The council wanted to see the results of the consortium’s monitoring, understand the cause and hear how the company was managing the disruption.

Waddington assured Marleau, and council, the company was investigating.

“If you look at how the LNG Canada startup has gone, it’s actually been smoother than most,” Waddington concluded. “We are actually kind of setting the bar.” On Jan. 5, 2026, LNG Canada published its first notification of the year, of a week-long flaring event that had already begun.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.