This past week, TransCanada announced that they will suspend their application for the Energy East pipeline for the next 30 days and may scrap the project altogether. This decision comes weeks after a National Energy Board regulator announced “a tougher review process” and after NEB ordered “Energy East’s review to start again from the beginning, voiding all decisions from the project’s previous panel.” 1
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“The Energy East pipeline would take crude from Canada’s oil heartland of Alberta and send it to eastern refineries and a marine terminal in Saint John. It would offer higher prices for Canadian producers, whose landlocked product trades at a discount to the West Texas Intermediate benchmark.
Energy East’s importance has diminished for TransCanada since U.S. President Donald Trump this year signed an order reviving the company’s Keystone XL pipeline, which would expand capacity from Alberta’s oilsands to U.S. refineries.” 2
Back in August, the NEB expanded Energy East’s review to consider indirect greenhouse gas contributions (a move TC called “completely redundant and unnecessary”3) and evaluate risk (think, oil spills, you know, the ones these companies claim will “never happen”).
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We will update you if TC moves forward.
