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“It’s relatively advanced in the funnel versus all of the others in the funnel,” said Shell chief financial officer Jessica Uhl on a conference call with investors. “The question will be ensuring that it is the most competitive project and we get the timing right in terms of when those volumes would come on stream.”

Shell and its partners in Japan, China and Korea are pledged to make a final investment decision by the end of the year.

There were encouraging words as well from Trans Canada corporation, which is in line to build the Coast GasLink pipeline linking the Kitimat site with the gas fields in northeast B.C.

“It is looking very positive for this project,” Karl Johannson, Trans Canada executive in charge of pipelines, told another investors’ call.

“It looks like LNG Canada has received some of the concessions they were looking for from the B.C. government and it looks like they’ve got their contractors in place now. As the pipeline supplier, we will be putting the rest of our arrangements together and waiting for a final investment decision for the end of the year that they’ve promised.”

Echoing those assessments was Patrick O’Rourke, an industry analyst with Calgary-based Alta Corp in an interview with Jesse Snyder of the Financial Post. O’Rourke put the odds of LNG Canada going ahead in the 60 to 75 per cent range.

Not surprisingly, there was a bullish statement on behalf of Japan-based JGC Corporation and U.S.-based Fluor Corporation, selected as the engineering, procurement and construction contractors for the proposed export terminal in Kitimat.