It may be a pipeline to nowhere, but Calgary-based TransCanada Corp. appears willing to take that chance. It has asked the National Energy Board to allow it to proceed with a $1.4-billion gas conduit from the booming Montney natural gas field in northeastern British Columbia to an export terminal at Prince Rupert, B.C. that may never be built.
TransCanada already holds “conditional federal and provincial approvals for the North Montney Mainline,” the Canadian Press reports, “but they are subject to a positive financial investment decision for the proposed Pacific Northwest liquefied natural gas (LNG) project on Lelu Island near Prince Rupert.”
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Ottawa approved the controversial $36-billion LNG terminal last fall. But there has been persistent speculation that its developer, troubled Malaysian national oil and gas company Petronas, may back out of the plan, which faces multiple legal challenges launched by First Nations.
Nonetheless, TransCanada says it wants “to begin construction on the pipeline in the first half of 2018, and bring it into service over a two-year period beginning in April 2019,” the news agency reports.
