Enbridge could use a Gateway Plan B. (Plan A is toast, there are no Plan Bs or Cs...) “Over the next three to four years, we’re going to open up 1.7 million barrels per day of new markets in North America,” Mr. Monaco told me from the Big Apple. Unfortunately, the straight-talking energy executive could offer little good news on another front: Northern Gateway. While opening up new lines to the U.S. Gulf Coast makes Enbridge money and stockholders happy, it’s the project currently on ice that everyone wants to talk about. Despite being given conditional approval by the National Energy Board and the federal government, few believe Gateway will ever see the light of day. Mr. Prentice knows it will never happen and was simply speaking the truth. A loading point somewhere further north, like Prince Rupert, always had a greater chance of political success, construction challenges aside. Mr. Monaco is not a stupid man and undoubtedly knows Kitimat is a hopeless cause, but he can’t admit that publicly. The only thing he can say is the company is trying to meet the 209 conditions imposed by the National Energy Board when it gave the project provisional approval last December. “Kitimat is a total non-starter. The project is dead if that’s the terminus,” another senior member of the B.C. government told me matter-of-factly. Enbridge’s options aren’t pretty. If it does change the pipeline’s end point, it will have to go back to the NEB for approval of a new submission. That could take two or three more years; no one knows for sure. At some point, Enbridge or its partners will say enough’s enough and terminate the project, with all the economic implications that has for Alberta and the country. theglobeandmail/globe-debate/enbridge-could-use-a-gateway-plan-b/article20893907/
Posted on: Fri, 03 Oct 2014 06:10:49 +0000
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