LNG Canada relying on unregulated, emergency spare flare following months of excess flaring and broken flare

VANCOUVER, BC | May 12, 2026 | Documents obtained this week from the BC Energy Regulator through Freedom of Information requests reveal the ongoing operational defect with the LNG Canada flare stack in Kitimat, British Columbia, has resulted in the facility’s flare tip cracking, requiring the company to rely on the emergency Spare Flare for the largest source of flaring in March.

Spare Flares are utilized in 'emergency' or ‘upset’ scenarios, which means that emissions are not regulated by permits, even though LNG Canada “is currently in the regular ‘operations’ phase,” according to the company and its permit.

Despite the largest source of flaring—by volume—occurring at the emergency Spare Flare, the facility’s cold/dry, and storage/loading flares also continued to greatly exceed their permitted volumes in March:

• The cold/dry flare calculated a monthly average rate of 29.7 m3/min against the permit limit of 9.6 m3/min.
• The Storage/Loading Flare (FLP) calculated a monthly average rate of 40.3 m3/min against the permit limit of 6.0 m3/min.

It was exposed on April 9 that the facility flared an average of 40 times more gas than its permits allow for the warm/wet and cold/dry flares during the last three months of 2025 and the first month of 2026, according to documents obtained from the BC Energy Regulator.

QUOTES

Tracey Saxby, Executive Director of My Sea To Sky

“This industry is operating unsafely in Canada and governments are allowing that to happen at the expense of human health. This is an emerging public health crisis. Ottawa needs to step in and issue a stop‑work order to LNG Canada, which has been spewing unregulated toxic chemicals into residential areas and exceeding its flaring permits by up to 40 times. These issues have been ongoing for close to a year. If this is the precedent oil and gas majors are setting for LNG in Canada, imagine what will happen with smaller, less experienced companies like Western LNG’s Ksi Lisims project or Woodfibre LNG.”

Tim Doty, former technical air expert at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), current Technical Advisor to Texas-based nonprofit Oilfield Witness and President of TCHD Consulting

“I just spent three days in Kitimat B.C. conducting optical gas imaging (OGI) field assessments of LNG Canada, using the same techniques and procedures that I helped to establish at the TCEQ’s Office of Compliance and Enforcement. During this monitoring project, I documented significant and sometimes massive uncombusted and partially combusted emissions being released from multiple exhaust stacks and a damaged and malfunctioning flare that was not being operated as designed and represented. The emissions filled the airshed with pollution over and beyond the company’s property line and would be expected to negatively impact the adjacent community and downwind receptors, pending meteorological conditions. I have personally performed OGI assessments at most of the operational LNG plants in both Texas and Louisiana over the last several years, and I can honestly say that I was shocked by what I documented at LNG Canada.”

Note to editors:

• LNG Canada disclosed to the BC Energy Regulator in 2025 that a flare stack at the facility had an “integrity issue.” This information was not made public until 2026. To manage this backburn problem and prevent an explosion, LNG Canada had been routing large volumes of gas to the problematic flare stack and burning it off into the airshed—until February 2026 when the flare tip cracked twice, likely due to increased and prolonged heat from excess flaring.
• LNG Canada says that gas processed at the facility “has the same composition as the natural gas used in homes for heating and cooking.” Samples from gas stoves in Vancouver and Calgary were found to have the highest benzene concentrations among samples from other North American cities, according to a peer-reviewed scientific study published in 2024.
• Benzene is such a potent carcinogen that no safe exposure level has been found. Benzene is not routinely measured or reported at LNG facilities in British Columbia.

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Media Resources
B-roll and images of flaring, including the emergency spare flare, at LNG Canada in Kitimat | Files are from April 26, 2026 during a planned flaring event unless otherwise noted | Photo credit: Supplied unless otherwise noted.