After years when “Canada is a dependable energy supplier” has been almost our mantra in Japan, this year the message is finally coming through, loud and clear. 

Canada’s trans-Pacific energy exports are steadily ramping up from ports along the British Columbia coast. From Burnaby B.C., it’s Alberta’s bitumen crude. From Kitimat, it’s LNG shipments that began in 2025. And from Prince Rupert, it’s propane, which Calgary-based AltaGas began exporting to Japan in 2019.

This year, AltaGas has stepped up the pace of trans-Pacific exports following the April launch of its giant new Very Large Gas Carrier (VLGC), the Aurora Guardian. From the purpose-built RIPET export terminal in Prince Rupert, the new vessel is the third in AltaGas’ fleet of ships shuttling back and forth to Asian ports… with an advantage that Japanese buyers now keenly understand. 

Prince Rupert is the closest railhead port in North America to Japan, a 10.5 day voyage to Tokyo Bay. By contrast, from Houston Texas it takes 26.5 days… if you’re lucky. 

That route involves transiting through the expensive Panama Canal, now so congested that Chinese LNG shippers are reportedly paying millions of dollars per ship just to cut to the front of the line. From Saudi ports on the Persian Gulf, Tokyo is an 18.5-day sail via two choke points: the Straits of Malacca and Hormuz – which is of course now closed. That’s making the trip from Prince Rupert – via open ocean all the way – look very attractive to buyers across Asia. 

To complicate matters though, after Trump slapped 10% tariffs on China in 2025, China retaliated with countervailing tariffs on U.S. energy products, including propane. So Chinese buyers focused on supplies from Prince Rupert, bidding up the price. That made it attractive for Japanese buyers to redirect propane contracted from B.C. at low prices to China for a fat bonus. Reportedly, the Japanese then began sourcing U.S. product that they could import tariff-free.

The situation became even more volatile after February 28th this year when the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran. Suddenly the Strait of Hormuz slammed shut and both Japan and China were cut off from their main suppliers of LNG and LPG (liquified petroleum gas – which is the term for propane and butane in a liquified state).

The upshot: after six years of steady growth, by 2024 AltaGas had a 25% share of Japan’s propane imports. Since then, although Japanese buyers still account for a share of propane leaving the wharf in Prince Rupert, very little now gets off-loaded in Japan.

It’s important to note that while Japanese buyers have contracts to buy substantial volumes of Canadian propane, it is their prerogative to on-sell it to whoever they please.

So right now it’s complicated. But once things calm down, Japanese buyers are unlikely to forget that shipping from Prince Rupert is the shortest, most secure route for energy imports.

Who needs propane anyway?

If you live in Tokyo or another major city where natural gas is piped right to your kitchen, you may wonder, “Who needs propane?”
Answer: people who live in rural areas and small towns across
Japan that lack piped gas. That, plus some industrial applications.

Propane lends itself to storage in metal cylinders that can be trucked to residential customers… like me. I live in a forest in rural Chiba where every month or so a 5-ton truck filled with cylinders comes clanging up my hill. The guy from my local supplier, Nittoh Energy, unhooks my empties, wheels them on a dolly round to his truck and swaps them for full ones. So I’ve been cookin’ with gas, Canadian gas!

Japan has over 15,000 retail propane suppliers (now rapidly consolidating), supplied by more than 1,000 wholesalers, which are in turn supplied by a few primary importers like Astomos, Iwatani and ENEOS Globe. 

I’ve been a fan of my local crew for decades. One long-ago morning before I was due to don a suit and head into Tokyo, my water heater conked out. Not 20 minutes after I phoned the local branch at 8:30, manager Kazuhiro Otani raced over and fixed it right away. That’s service! Otani-san is now a regional manager.

Riding the wave with a timely launch

Since the start of sales to Japan in 2019, AltaGas has continuously expanded its export infrastructure. On the Canadian end, propane is shipped by rail from Alberta and the B.C. Interior to RIPET, its Ridley Island terminal near Prince Rupert, where it is loaded on ships for transport to Asian markets. Along with partner Vopak, AltaGas is currently building a second export facility nearby. The C$1.35 billion Ridley Island Energy Export Facility (REEF) is scheduled to come online by end of year, adding roughly 56,000 barrels/day of LPG export capacity. It is designed to enable future expansion that will allow additional exports of both propane and butane.

Prince Rupert is arguably the safest deep-water port on Canada’s Pacific Coast. I can testify to that, having long ago worked on B.C. coastal ships that docked at Ridley Island. One turn after leaving the wharf and it’s a straight shot out to open ocean, 100 nautical miles or half a day steaming, till you’re past the furthest point of Haida Gwaii. 

AltaGas now has a growing fleet of ships making that voyage every few weeks, including…

M.V. Aurora Guardian, pride of the AltaGas fleet

Owned by Kumiai Navigation and operating under time charter to AltaGas, the Aurora Guardian has joined the Boreal Pioneer and Boreal Voyager in AltaGas’ growing fleet of VLGCs, delivering LPG exports to Asian markets.

Built in Shikoku at the Sakaide Shipyard of Kawasaki Heavy Industries (KHI), the new vessel was launched on April 9 in a ceremony attended by Ambassador Ian McKay and representatives from AltaGas, Kawasaki and Kumiai, among others.

The ship’s specs are impressive: 230m long, 56,000 deadweight metric tons, 87,000 cubic meter cargo capacity. Sailing under the Singapore flag, it has a crew of 29.

The launch was timely, given intense demand for LPG after the Strait of Hormuz was blocked. No time was wasted getting down to work. On the other side of the Pacific from Sakaide, the vessel loaded its first LPG cargo on May 22.

Nor is that the end of the story. A fourth VLGC, also being built by KHI at Sakaide, is scheduled to join the AltaGas fleet later this year.

Delivering near every door in Japan 

Beyond the major advantage of a short, obstacle-free voyage from Prince Rupert, the AltaGas fleet has a further competitive edge once its ships reach the archipelago. Given Japan’s notoriously expensive trucking costs, the closer you can deliver to the end user the better. And Japan’s propane consumers are not concentrated in a few major metropolitan areas. Instead they are spread throughout small towns and rural areas from Hokkaido to Okinawa. AltaGas reports that it can offload at 15 terminals from one end of the country to the other. 

Is propane the ‘gravy’ of natural gas?

In the classic 1968 film The Odd Couple, Oscar (the sportswriter slob) suggests that Felix (his fussy flatmate) should just pour gravy on their over-cooked meatloaf. “I don’t have any gravy,” Felix snarls back. “What?” replies Oscar. “I thought gravy just comes when you cook the meat.” 

That’s about the level of most people’s understanding of “natural gas.” It’s easy to assume that what comes up from the ground is pretty much what comes out of your stove. But that’s wrong. The mix from different underground sources varies, but along with methane (the familiar light gas) comes other heavier compounds like propane and butane. So producers must strip these out and find various other industrial and consumer uses for them.

These are the contents of Liquefied Petro-leum Gas (LPG), primarily propane and butane, which are easy to condense into a liquid for convenient storage and transport in tanks
and cylinders.  

By contrast, LNG is primarily methane with a few trace elements. The gas itself is easy to pipe in its natural state, but to ship across the ocean it must be condensed to about 1/600th of its natural volume. This requires chilling it to -162 C, which involves a huge energy input.

Once you understand these basic differences, the rationale behind the distribution systems becomes clear. 

“Natural gas” must be piped from production sites in Alberta and Interior B.C. to Pacific ports where hugely expensive chilling plants are needed to condense it into LNG. From there, LNG carriers will ship LNG to ports near Japan’s major cities where it can be re-gasified and fed into the urban pipe network. Canada’s first LNG export facility, in Kitimat near Prince Rupert, began commercial operations in June 2025.

LPG, on the other hand, is shipped by rail to ports like Prince Rupert for loading on VLGCs like the Aurora Guardian.  The process is much simpler. On the Japan end, distributors can easily re-gasify the liquefied product and decant it into household-sized cylinders.

Propane is especially good for household use in cold climates because it continues to vaporize into a gas at very low temperatures. In tropical countries butane is often used instead. The other use for LPG in Japan is for vehicle fuel, mainly taxis and delivery trucks.

And there you have it. Just so you know: you will need this for the exam.