Bloomberg quoted British Columbia’s Minister of Natural Gas Development Rich Coleman as saying Petronas was in the process of reassessing the project’s costs, including those of steel, pipes and other inputs.

Petronas won conditional Canadian government approval for the Pacific Northwest LNG Project in September after more than three years of regulatory review.

“They need to go out and re-price the project,” Coleman told Bloomberg in an interview here. Coleman had met with Petronas executives in Kuala Lumpur last month.

“They hope to have that done in three to six months. Once they’ve done that, they’ll go back to the partners and decide whether to make a final investment decision.”

Petronas told Bloomberg, in an email response, that it was reviewing the project and working to lower capital costs.

“Before the project can proceed to a positive final investment decision, we need to ensure the project is competitive with similar projects around the world,” Petronas said.

Canada relies on the US to buy almost all of its energy exports, forcing it to sell at a discount to international benchmark prices, according to the report.

British Columbia is positioning itself as a gateway for Asian exports with its vast reserves and is among North America’s closest ports to the region.

Petronas is the majority owner of the Pacific Northwest LNG Project, which could produce as much as 19.2 million tons a year of the fuel, or about 8 per cent of last year’s global trade. Its partners are China Petrochemical Corp, Japan Petroleum Exploration Co, Indian Oil Corp and Brunei National Petroleum Co.