VIDEO: Critical minerals race driving resource nationalism
Jimena Blanco, chief analyst at Verisk Maplecroft, says that geopolitical tensions are causing major shifts in global mining policies.
TransCanada wanted to convert one of its existing natural-gas pipelines into a 4,600-kilometre oil pipeline — dubbed Energy East — that would carry 1.1 million barrels of crude oil per day from Hardisty, Alberta, to refineries in Quebec and New Brunswick.
TransCanada Corp.’s cancellation of the Energy East pipeline leaves Canadian oil producers more dependent than ever on the Keystone XL and Trans Mountain proposals, two projects facing ardent opposition in their own right.
Energy East would have given oil producers in Alberta and Saskatchewan, who are heavily dependent on buyers in the U.S., another market for their crude by carrying about 1.1 million barrels a day to refineries and a marine-shipping terminal in eastern Canada. TransCanada cancelled that project on Thursday amid regulatory hurdles and weaker oil prices.
