TC ENERGY WANTS RELIEF
More than $15B sought over KXL cancellation
TC Energy Corp is seeking more than US$15 billion in damages from the U.S. government over the cancellation of its Keystone XL project, the Canadian pipeline operator said on Friday.
The company early last month officially cancelled the US$9 billion project after U.S. President Joe Biden revoked a key permit needed to build it on his first day in office in January.
TC Energy said on Friday it had filed a notice of intent to begin a legacy North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) claim under the United States-mexico-canada agreement.
The project, which was planned to carry 830,000 barrels of heavy crude per day across the border from Alberta in Canada to Nebraska, had been delayed for over a decade following opposition from U.S. landowners, Native American tribes and environmentalists.
The company had booked a $2.2 billion impairment charge to its first-quarter results in May related to the suspension of construction on the project.
Calgary-based TC Energy Corp. ended its 16-year quest June 9 to build the controversial cross-border project that became a litmus test for climate activism.
The company said in a statement at the time it had formally terminated the project after consultation with the government of Alberta in Canada. It had already suspended construction on the pipeline earlier this year, after Biden revoked a presidential permit for the project.
Whole segments of Keystone XL, including one that crosses the U.s.-canadian border, have already been built.
Keystone XL helped galvanize modern climate activism, uniting environmentalists in a battle against the project some described as a “climate dirty bomb.” It also shifted the course of American environmentalism from its roots battling nuclear power, toxic waste and chemical insecticides in the 1960s and 1970s.
The TC Energy decision concluded a long struggle over the 1,930-kilometre pipeline designed to ferry Canadian oilsands crude from Alberta to Steele City, Nebraska.
The project had been buffeted by the political winds in the U.S., getting rejected by President Barack Obama in 2015 before President Donald Trump revived it two years later. Biden issued an executive order revoking the critical presidential permit for Keystone XL on his first day in office.
Reuters and Financial Post