TransCanada Announces Tarsands Pipeline To Its East Coast

TransCanada, the Calgary-based company behind the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, announced that it would push ahead with a $12 billion Energy East Pipeline from Canada’s oil sands to the Port of St. John on Canada’s eastern coast. The new pipeline would carry 1.1 million barrels a day, more than a third more than the Keystone XL would.

TransCanada’s pipeline announcement is an expected but still bold step for the company, which has waited for years for a decision on its Keystone XL proposal to the U.S. Gulf Coast.

TransCanada plans to seek regulatory approval for the project from Canada's National Energy Board by the end of the year, and, if it succeeds, to start construction in 2016. Service to refineries in Montreal and Quebec City would begin the following year and then to Saint John in 2018.

The provinces through which the pipeline would pass will also have a say over the project.  TransCanada expects the Energy East project to proceed. Alberta and New Brunswick support the proposal. Quebec's position is unclear.

The new line would supply eastern Canadian refineries and would also provide export capacity through St. John. Some of that exported oil could go to U.S. Gulf Coast refineries. The 2,734-mile pipeline would enable producers to ship up to 1.1 million barrels of oil a day from Alberta and Saskatchewan to eastern Canadian refineries. The company has so far secured long-term contracts to transport about 900,000 barrels of oil a day through the proposed pipeline.(Wash Post, 8/1/2013, WSJ, 8/1/2013))