Another setback for the variable Tar Sands Octopus pipeline operator and builder TransCanada.
TransCanada should abandon plans for port terminal in beluga area: Quebec premier
By Martin Ouellet
QUEBEC -- TransCanada Corp. should abandon its plan to build an oil terminal in an area in eastern Quebec where belugas have been listed as an endangered species, Premier Philippe Couillard said Tuesday.
A federal government wildlife committee recently concluded that their numbers near Cacouna have dwindled to 1,000 from a high of 10,000.
That information will make the project harder for TransCanada (TSX:TRP) to sell the Energy East project at environmental hearings in Quebec and with the National Energy Board, Couillard told a joint news conference with his Alberta counterpart, Jim Prentice.
The Calgary-based company wants the terminal in Cacouna as part of its 4,600-kilometre pipeline, which would carry 1.1 million barrels per day of oilsands crude from Alberta to refineries in Quebec and New Brunswick.
On Monday, it announced it would halt all work on the terminal in response to concerns the project could hurt the beluga habitat.
TransCanada spokesman Tim Duboyce said the company will "review all viable options" after it analyzes the environmental report from the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada.
On Monday, Prentice used a speech to a Vancouver business crowd to urge the country to get behind several controversial pipeline projects linked to Alberta's oilsands, warning that all Canadians will "feel the pain" if they aren't approved and built soon.
More realistically all Canadians will "feel the pain" if these Tar Sand Pipelines are built, and continue to feel the pain for centuries to come.
TransCanada isn't have any luck on its Tar Sands pipeline projects lately, with the US Senate's rejection of Keystone XL.
We here on the Left Coast have our own proposed monstrous Oil Terminal that was just announced for Vancouver, Washington on the Columbia River. If this large capacity rail to ship oil terminal is built it would become the biggest one in the U.S.
Proposed oil terminal would be biggest in volume
Vancouver Energy's oil-by-rail capacity would be tops in U.S., analysis shows
By Eric Florip
By any measure, the size of the proposed oil terminal at the Port of Vancouver is eye-catching.
The oil-by-rail facility would handle an average of 360,000 barrels of crude per day, or up to four oil trains daily. The terminal would dwarf anything currently operating in Washington.
In fact, at full capacity, the proposal known as Vancouver Energy would handle more oil by rail than any single facility in the United States, according to an analysis of crude-by-rail terminals by The Columbian.
“On paper, it’s the biggest facility of that type,” said Sandy Fielden, director of energy analytics for Texas-based consultant RBN Energy. “As far as I’m aware, there’s not an existing terminal that handles that type of capacity.”
Energy, a joint venture by Tesoro Corp. and Savage Companies, is among a spate of recent proposals hoping to capitalize on the emerging trend. Some are entirely new terminals; some are expansions of existing facilities.
Other sites may have more storage capacity than the Vancouver terminal. Others may process more total oil — a refinery, for example, could handle oil that arrives by pipeline and other means in addition to rail cars.
But Vancouver Energy, proposed as a transloading terminal that would transfer crude from trains to marine vessels on the Columbia River, appears to surpass all others in terms of oil arriving or leaving strictly by rail.
“It is definitely about the biggest terminal that’s been proposed,” Fielden said. “Whether or how quickly they’ll get up to that rate to me is questionable.”
This proposed oil terminal will further threaten the already vastly reduced Columbia River salmon runs decimated by dam building. Turning the magnificent Columbia River into an oily sewer is a risk we can not tolerate.