Enbridge to Meet Re-Elected British Columbia Liberals on Gateway
Enbridge Inc. (ENB) is moving ahead with plans to meet five conditions for the British Columbia government to support its proposed Northern Gateway oil pipeline, after a Liberal re-election made clear terms needed to satisfy officials in the Pacific Coast province.
Enbridge, the largest transporter of Canadian crude, plans to sit down with Premier Christy Clark’s government to discuss her support, Vern Yu, vice president of business development at Enbridge, told reporters today in Calgary. The C$6 billion ($5.8 billion) conduit would carry oil-sands crude to the Pacific Coast for export.
The May 14 re-election of Clark’s Liberals in British Columbia meant the defeat of the New Democratic Party under Adrian Dix that had vowed to block plans by Enbridge and Kinder Morgan Energy Partners LP (KMP)to expand oil shipments from Alberta through Canada’s western-most province. Clark didn’t rule out oil shipments, while imposing five conditions on the projects.
“We’re well on our way to meeting three of those five conditions and we look forward to sitting down with her government to address the last two,” Yu said, after a panel talk about pipelines. “It does appear that her government has formed more of an opinion of what’s necessary to get the project across the finish line than perhaps the NDP did.”
The projects by Calgary-based Enbridge and Houston-based Kinder Morgan would together move more than 1 million barrels a day from Alberta, home to the third-largest oil reserves. Oil-sands output is poised to double last year’s production by 2022, according to energy regulators in Alberta. Kinder Morgan plans a C$5.4 billion twinning of its Trans Mountain line that runs from Edmonton to a terminus near Vancouver.
Five Conditions
Among five conditions laid out by Clark to support oil pipeline expansions in British Columbia is what she’s labeled a “fair share” of economic benefits for her province.
Kinder Morgan is scheduling a meeting with the British Columbia government “in a couple of weeks,” Ian Anderson, the president of the company’s Canadian unit, said in Calgary today.
“I don’t think the certainty of the pipeline proposal has changed,” with the election, Anderson said in an interview. The review process is largely in the federal government’s hands and the company would have had “a clear path” for necessary provincial permits from the British Columbia government under either the Liberals or the NDP, Anderson said.
Kinder Morgan plans to apply to Canada’s National Energy Board for the expansion late this year, Anderson said.
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