Keyera Energy headed to Port of Vancouver

Propane distribution company Keyera Energy Co. will be the first industrial tenant at the Port of Vancouver USA’s new Terminal 5.

The port on Tuesday said its commissioners approved a 20-year lease agreement with Calgary, Alberta-based Keyera, starting March 1. It includes an option to extend the lease for 10 more years.

The port will earn about $3.4 million from the lease over the initial 20 years.

Keyera isn’t a new business to Vancouver. It operates its own terminal near the Hough and Fruit Valley neighborhoods, just north of Mill Plain Boulevard east of the Vancouver Rail Yard. But the company has to relocate ahead of the Washington Department of Transportation’s Vancouver Bypass rail project.

It will occupy a four-acre parcel north of the Terminal 5 rail loop that’s now under construction. Keyera will receive inbound propane by rail and export it from the terminal by truck.

In a separate development, commissioners gave the port’s staff the go-ahead on an agreement with Northwest Pipeline that would move an underground gas pipeline from beneath the path of Terminal 5’s unit train facility.