Alberta premier Alison Redford is currently on trade mission in India.
Alberta Oil magazine reports, “With India’s energy demands set to increase sharply, Redford is trying to sell the country’s industry leaders on Alberta oil. …TransCanada Corp.’s proposed Energy East project could play a key role in building that trade relationship with India. In a 2013 interview with Alberta Oil, New Brunswick’s premier explained that the port of Saint John, where the Energy East project would end, offers a shorter shipping route to India than Canada’s West Coast.”
Energy East would be a 4,400 kilometre pipeline stretching from Alberta to New Brunswick. It would carry 1.1 million barrels of crude oil per day from Alberta and Saskatchewan. The company would convert 3,000 kilometres of an existing natural gas pipeline to Quebec and build an additional 1,400 kilometres of pipeline from there to New Brunswick. Its terminus would be the Irving Refinery and its deep water port in Saint John. Shipping oil from that port could mean a large number of tankers travelling through the Bay of Fundy to markets in India, China and Europe. Communities on the Bay of Fundy shoreline include St. Andrews, Blacks Harbour, and Sackville in New Brunswick and Amherst, Truro, Wolfville and Digby in Nova Scotia.
At 1.1 million barrels per day, the Energy East pipeline would be bigger than the Keystone XL pipeline (830,000 bpd), the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion (from its current 300,000 bpd to 890,000 bpd), and the Northern Gateway pipeline (525,000 bpd).
It is expected that TransCanada will seek approval from the National Energy Board for the pipeline in early 2014. The portion of the pipeline to Quebec could be converted by 2017, the pipeline to New Brunswick completed and operational by 2018.
The Council of Canadians is actively campaigning against the pipeline.
Further reading
Energy East pipeline may put at risk Winnipeg’s drinking water
TransCanada CEO says we need to “get oil exported on the water”
Saint John mayor boasts of Energy East pipeline export options in the Bay of Fundy
Harper’s agenda of free trade and energy exports to India
Council warns against Enbridge gas pipeline expansion in the GTA
