In past years, most oil sands projects were either cancelled or put on hold as majors including Royal Dutch Shell Plc and ConocoPhillips sold their operations to local producers.
The country’s once vibrant exploration activity plummeted after Chavez came to power in 1999 and nationalized foreign companies’ mining licenses and assets.
The line would connect gas fields in western Canada’s prolific Montney shale formation with the C$40 billion LNG Canada project on British Columbia’s coast.
