RE:RE:cuts An Energy East revival?
Notley is expected to meet the prime minister and other premiers in Montreal for a first ministers’ meeting on Dec. 7.
In recent weeks, Notley’s new counterparts in New Brunswick and Ontario have indicated they would be interested in resuscitating discussions of east-bound oilsands pipelines.
New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs has said he would like to see provincial governments work together to resubmit the Energy East application that was abandoned in September 2017. In an economic and fiscal review released Nov. 15, Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s government said it wouldn’t stand in the way of interprovincial pipelines.
TransCanada Corp., the Calgary-based energy company that previously was proposing to build Energy East, has said it has no plans to resurrect the pipeline proposal. It is now relying on some government support from Alberta to proceed with another major pipeline project, the Keystone XL pipeline. Alberta has agreed to buy some space as a shipper on the pipeline to ensure it has enough customers to proceed.
Notley said her government would be “very interested” in a project to get Alberta oil to tidewater or to supply the rest of Canada.
“Quite frankly it is perverse that we are selling our oil in Alberta for $10 a barrel and then in Eastern Canada we are importing from places like Saudi Arabia. This makes no sense,” she said.
“I think most Canadians would agree that efforts that we can take to encourage economic development through the intelligent use of our energy resources would be welcome, so we certainly would be always happy to have those conversations and look forward to having more in the future.”
A recent study by the National Energy Board concluded that Atlantic Canada refineries still rely primarily on imported oil, including from the United States and Saudi Arabia. However, the reversal and expansion of the Line 9B pipeline has made Quebec more and more reliant on Western Canadian crude.