TC Energy Rules Out Sale of Canadian Mainline Pipeline

TC Energy Corp. Chief Executive Officer Francois Poirier ruled out selling the Canadian Mainline natural gas pipeline — which stretches across most of the country — as the trade war with the US pushes energy security up Canadian politicians’ priority list

President Donald Trump’s tariffs and repeated taunts about annexing Canada have highlighted the country’s vulnerability in relying on a crude pipeline that crosses through the US to supply oil for the eastern provinces’ refineries. Both of the main political parties seeking power in this month’s election have discussed the need to reduce reliance on the pipeline that goes through the Midwest.

The Mainline stretches more than 14,000 kilometers (8,700 miles) from energy-producing Alberta to major population centers in Ontario and Quebec while remaining entirely within Canada’s borders. TC Energy had once proposed converting the line from natural gas to oil before the project, known as Energy East, was abandoned amid opposition, primarily in Quebec.

TC Energy last year split off its oil pipelines into a separate company and is now focused on natural gas transportation and power generation, making the Mainline one of its marquee assets. That makes converting or selling the pipeline something the company won’t consider, Poirier said.

“We have a very large group of natural gas shippers with whom we have contractual obligations to deliver natural gas for, in some cases, many more decades,” Poirier said in an interview Thursday in Toronto. “Given that all of our capacity is contracted, legally speaking, we wouldn’t be able to consider a conversion of some of our existing infrastructure to oil service.”