TransCanada Agree Deal with PetroChina to Build $3 Billion Oil Pipeline

TransCanada Corp., the company behind the Keystone XL pipeline and Canada’s largest pipeline company, has agreed a deal with Phoenix Energy Holdings Ltd., a unit of PetroChina Co. Ltd., to build a $3 billion oil pipeline in Northern Alberta.

The Grand Rapids Pipeline will transport crude oil from the Athabasca oil sands for about 500km to the Edmonton-Heartland region.

Zhiming Li, the chief executive officer of Phoenix, stated that, “transportation in the Athabasca region has become a bottleneck. This transportation solution will be important to Phoenix and other potential producers in the area to monetize their huge resources.”

Related Article: The US is Not Even Close to Being the Next Saudi Arabia

TransCanada will apply for regulatory approval next year, and hope to start transporting up to 900,000 barrels of crude a day along the pipe by early 2017.

Russ Girling, the TransCanada Chief Executive, explained that “as Alberta crude oil production continues to grow, it's critical to have the infrastructure in place to move oil to market from emerging developments west of the Athabasca river.”

The project will be jointly owned by TransCanada and Phoenix, making it the largest stake that a Chinese company has in a Canadian pipeline. Does this give any indication as to the decision that may be made in relation to CNOOC’s takeover of Nexen?

By. Charles Kennedy of Oilprice.com