TransCanada is considering all options for financing its US$8-billion now nearly decade-old Keystone XL pipeline project, including selling some assets and bringing in joint venture partners, president and chief executive Russ Girling said on the Q3 earnings call on Thursday.
"We do have a sizeable portfolio of saleable assets, contracted, that we would be willing to part with to fund part of the Keystone XL program," Reuters quoted Girling as saying on the call. "We would entertain JV partners on this project," TransCanada's chief executive added.
TransCanada's managers, however, didn't say on the call what stake the company would want to keep in the Keystone XL project if it would welcome partners, or when it would make the final investment decision.
Executives, however, said that the company continues to work toward construction in 2019.
In its Q3 earnings release earlier on Thursday, TransCanada said it expects that the Nebraska Supreme Court could reach a decision on the Keystone XL route in the state by the first quarter of 2019.
However, Keysone XL is facing another, more recent, legal challenge, after two U.S. Native American communities filed a lawsuit in Montana in September, challenging the Keystone XL Presidential Permit.
"It is uncertain how and when this lawsuit will proceed," TransCanada said on Thursday.
TransCanada first proposed in 2008 to build the Keystone XL pipeline that would run from Alberta in Canada to Nebraska and the U.S. Gulf Coast. After being dumped by the previous U.S. Administration, Keystone XL was revived by President Donald Trump in one of his first decisions after taking office.
Keystone XL has become one of the most controversial oil projects in North America, but it is also one of the most important for Canadian crude oil producers who have been struggling with a significant pipeline capacity shortage that has depressed Canada's heavy oil prices to as low as US$20 in recent weeks.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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Tsvetana is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing for news outlets such as iNVEZZ and SeeNews. More