China’s top offshore oil explorer, CNOOC Ltd, has applied for permission from Canadian energy regulators to export up to 24 million tonnes of LNG over a 25-year period along Canada’s West Coast. CNOOC and its Japanese partners plan to build a massive liquefaction and export facility to ship gas from CNOOC’s shale gas properties located in Western Canada to energy-starved markets in Asia. These gas properties were acquired as part of CNOOC’s heavily debated $15.1 billion takeover of Nexen.  The Province of British Columbia hopes that the industry will bring in billions in tax revenues and create thousands of jobs, encouraging major energy companies to start work on terminals for the Pacific coast. The National Energy Board has already approved three export licenses and is in the process of reviewing five more, in addition to the CNOOC terminal.