TransCanada announced Thursday the company no longer plans to build an oil tanker terminal at the controversial site of Cacouna, Quebec, as part of its 1.1 million barrel-a-day Energy East oil pipeline project.

“TransCanada will be advising the NEB (National Energy Board) that the company will not be proceeding with a marine terminal in Cacouna and is evaluating other options,” the Calgary-based pipeline company said in a press release. Cacouna was TransCanada's lone Quebec terminal.

TransCanada used the announcement as an opportunity to take a shot at Energy East’s critics. 

“It goes without saying but we’ll say it anyway, our decision was certainly not made because of opposition from some well-funded groups that want to deny Canadians the right to benefit from a reliable domestic supply of energy that ensures Canadians enjoy the quality of life they’ve come to expect in this country every day,” TransCanada states on its Energy East website.

The comments are reminiscent of Finance Minister Joe Oliver’s foreign funded “radical groups” remarks regarding Northern Gateway pipeline opponents in 2012.  

TransCanada now projects the pipeline will be in operation in 2020, two years later than the original date of 2018.

Keith Stewart, climate and energy campaigner with Greenpeace Canada, told the Globe and Mail the delay shows TransCanada is "clearly in damage-control mode."

“There is no chance TransCanada will find a place in Quebec where they will find the social licence to operate,” Patrick Bonin, Climate and Energy Campaigner with Greenpeace Canada, told DeSmog Canada.

“The majority of Quebec doesn’t want this project."

TransCanada lost face with the public when documents leaked to Greenpeace revealed the company's strategy to undermine opposition to the Energy East pipeline.

The proposal to build a marine oil tanker terminal for Energy East in Cacouna has been at the centre of controversy for months. Cacouna is near the breeding grounds of the declining St. Lawrence Estuary beluga whales. Last December, the federal Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada recommended placing the belugas on the species at risk list due to their dwindling numbers.

Russ Girling, TransCanada CEO, said the company cancelled the Cacouna terminal in response to concerns about the whales.

"This decision is the result of the recommended change in status of the Beluga whales to endangered and ongoing discussions we have had with communities and key stakeholders," he said in a statement.

Jennifer Skene from the Natural Resources Defense Council writes the loss of the terminal is the result of public opposition to the project.

"This is just another roadblock encountered by Energy East, as growing public opposition to tar sands continues to block proposed pipelines and undermine the industry's climate-destroying expansion plans." 

“By abandoning its tanker terminal plans for Cacouna, Quebec, TransCanada has finally admitted Energy East carries major risks for Canada,” Environmental Defence’s Adam Scott told the Globe and Mail.

“If TransCanada is serious about listening, it should move immediately to cancel the Energy East project,” he said.

Energy East is “an export pipeline that has nothing to do with meeting Canadian demand for oil," Scott added.

Canceling Cacouna No Surprise

Rumours of the decision to axe Cacouna from the pipeline project surfaced months ago.

Montreal-based newspaper La Presse, citing government sources, reported in February TransCanada was no longer considering Cacouna as the site for Energy East’s Quebec terminal. Similar reports resurfaced in La Presse and other news outlets this earlier week.

TransCanada denied all reports, claiming no decision had been reached. Originally, the pipeline company planned to unveil its decision on Cacouna last Tuesday, but delayed the announcement.

The possibility of an alternate Quebec terminal remains.

“Potential alternative terminal options in Quebec are being reviewed. Quebec and New Brunswick refineries would continue to be connected directly to Energy East,” a TransCanada press release states.

According to the company all changes to the Energy East project will be filed with the National Energy Board (NEB), Canada’s pipelines regulator, by the fall.

The regulatory process, which will partially decide the fate of the Energy East project, will not begin until TransCanada submits complete and finalized project plans on the pipeline. The NEB has already received over 1,800 applications from Canadians wishing to comment on the project.

Any changes to the project means the participant application process will likely be reopened, potentially allowing more members of the public to participate in the regulatory hearings. Hearings are now expected to begin in 2016.

Photo credit: Inhabitat

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TransCanada appears to have dumped plans for constructing a marine oil tanker export terminal at the controversial location of Cacouna, Quebec, as part of its Energy East oil pipeline project.

Several sources in the Quebec government told Montreal-based newspaper La Presse TransCanada is abandoning its plans for Cacouna, on the shores of the St. Lawrence River, as the 1.1 million barrels-a-day pipeline project’s Quebec export terminal. A second terminal is proposed for Saint John, New Brunswick.

“This is a great citizen victory,” Patrick Bonin, Climate and Energy Campaigner with Greenpeace Canada in Montreal, said. Cacouna’s close proximity to the breeding grounds of the St. Lawrence Estuary beluga whales has been at the centre of controversy around the proposed marine terminal in Quebec.

TransCanada denies its has given up on Cacouna. According to a TransCanada spokesperson, the Calgary-based pipeline company intends on making a decision on the Cacouna terminal at the end of March. Francois Poirier, president of the Energy East, made the same announcement last week.

Construction and exploratory work in and around Cacouna has been at a standstill since last December when the Committee on the Status of Wildlife in Canada announced the St. Lawrence’s belugas are at even greater risk of extinction than they were ten years ago. The committee concluded the belugas should be on Canada’s species-at-risk list.

Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard, who is not opposed to the $12 billion pipeline project, said he would find it hard to support the construction of the Cacouna marine terminal in light of the risks it could pose to the belugas’ dwindling numbers.

If TransCanada has decided not to build its deep-water terminal at Cacouna, finding an alternative in Quebec may prove difficult. The mayor and council of the port city of Levis, another a possible site for an Energy East export terminal, have been less than receptive to the idea in the past. In total eight potential sites in Quebec are under consideration by TransCanada for an export terminal.

Forgoing building a terminal in Quebec entirely will also make it harder for TransCanada to sell to Quebecers the argument the province will benefit economically from Energy East. A report last June revealed the economic benefits of the pipeline project will be “minimal” even with the construction of an export terminal.

Quebec groups demand suspension of Energy East review

“We want the NEB [National Energy Board] to suspend the regulatory process for Energy East. We don’t know the exact route [of the pipeline] anymore,” Bonin of Greenpeace told DeSmog Canada.

The NEB, Canada’s federal regulator of pipelines, kick started the regulatory process on Energy East last week when it made its ‘application to participate’ available to the public. Canadians wishing to have their comments on the pipeline project heard by the NEB must apply by the end of the month.

Groups in Quebec are already demanding the NEB halt the process due to the lack information on the project available to the public. The environmental group Centre Québécois du droit de l’environment (CQDE) and landowner France Lamonde are seeking a court injunction to halt the process until more information about the Energy East application is available in French.

TransCanada submitted a 30,000-page Energy East application to the NEB. Critics point out the massive application is still incomplete. The pipeline company plans on submitting more information later this month.

Image Credit: Bill Liao via Flickr

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Alberta Premier Jim Prentice begins an Energy East lobby tour today in Quebec City to try to woo the premiers of Quebec and Ontario into supporting TransCanada's 1.1 million barrel-per-day oil pipeline proposal.

“It is a sign the project is in danger,” Patrick Bonin, a Greenpeace Canada climate and energy campaigner based in Montreal, told DeSmog Canada. “Over 70 per cent of Quebecers don’t want Energy East to be built.”

Ontario and Quebec announced last month that Energy East would have to meet seven conditions to gain the provinces' approval of the 4,600-kilometer pipeline from Alberta to New Brunswick. Included in these conditions is a demand for a full environmental assessment of the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the pipeline.

An analysis conducted earlier this year by the Pembina Institute, an energy think tank, found the greenhouse gas emissions from extracting the oilsands bitumen to fill the Energy East pipeline would erase all reductions in greenhouse gas emissions achieved by Ontario’s phase out of coal-fired power plants. The analysis did not include emissions from combustion, which would make Energy East’s carbon footprint even higher.

“If Ontario and Quebec are concerned about greenhouse gas emissions and climate change then the Energy East tar sands pipeline project is dead already,” Adam Scott, climate and energy program manager with Environmental Defence, told DeSmog Canada.

Prentice meets with Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard Tuesday and Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne in Toronto on Wednesday.

Ontario and Quebec's conditions exceed B.C.’s heavy oil conditions

This is not the first time an Alberta premier has travelled to another province on behalf of a pipeline project. British Columbia Premier Christy Clark famously inflamed relations with Alberta with her five conditions for the Northern Gateway pipeline, which resulted in some icy meetings with then Alberta premier Alison Redford.

Clark's demand to receive a greater share of the fiscal benefits from Northern Gateway was a contentious issue between the two western provinces, but she did not go as far as Wynne and Couillard in insisting the pipeline's greenhouse gas emissions be properly assessed.

The National Energy Board's reviews of pipeline projects aren't taking climate change into account, which has left a leadership vacuum that the provinces are stepping in to fill. New pipelines facilitate expansion of oilsands production, leading to higher greenhouse gas emissions.

The seven conditions on the Government of Ontario's website.

Bad news for Energy East continues

Prentice’s visit comes during a turbulent public relations spell for Energy East.

Documents leaked to Greenpeace last month revealed TransCanada had hired global PR firm Edelman to work on an aggressive strategy of undermining Energy East opponents through tactics that included creating phony grassroots groups to give the impression of genuine support of the pipeline. The revelations caused TransCanada and Edelman to publicly part ways.

Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, former Maple Spring student activist and author, announced on Radio-Canada just days after the leak that he was donating his $25,000 Governor General’s Literary Award to an anti-pipeline coalition and encouraged the public to do match it. Donations have reached $400,000 now. 

Yesterday the Committee on the Status of Wildlife in Canada announced the belugas whales of the St. Lawrence Estuary — where TransCanada has plans for an Energy East marine oil tanker terminal — are at greater risk of extinction than a decade ago, forcing TransCanada to halt work on the terminal.   

“It’s good news and bad news,” Bonin says. “TransCanada’s marine terminal at Cacouna probably won’t be built now, but it is sad to find out the beluga population is not recovering."

Image Credit: Jim Prentice via Twitter, WWF Canada

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Quebec will gain “minimal economic benefits” from west-to-east oil pipeline projects such as TransCanada’s Energy East and Enbridge’s Line 9 according to a new report released this month. Both projects would transport western Canadian oil and oilsands (also called tar sands) bitumen to refineries and ports in Quebec, but would only make a combined 0.50 per cent contribution to economic activity and 0.30 per cent to jobs in the province.

“Quebec will bear almost all of the risks and costs associated with spills and other environmental impacts, without any offsetting economic gains,” Brigid Rowan, senior economist with the consulting firm The Goodman Group Ltd., and co-author of the report says.

Oilsands producers, pipeline companies, and the owners of the two refineries in Quebec have the most to gain from Line 9 and Energy East concludes the report by The Goodman Group Ltd. in collaboration with Greenpeace and Equiterre. The fifty-five-page report also refutes claims by pipeline proponents that supplying Quebec with cheaper western Canadian bitumen will make things cheaper at the gas pump for Quebecers.

“Refineries will not provide discounts for Quebec markets when they can also sell their refined products to profitable markets outside Quebec,” the report states.

“Consumers who think that oil companies will give them a break at the gas pump have another thing coming,” Pierre-Olivier Pineau, an energy specialist at HEC Montreal Business School warns.

“The extra profit margin from cheaper Canadian crude oil will most likely be pocketed by the refineries,” Pineau predicts.

Quebec’s coastal location gives both refiners and oilsands producers the opportunity to sell their product overseas if the price is right. DeSmog Canada reported last March as much as ninety per cent of the oil and bitumen TransCanada wants to ship through its proposed 4,600 kilometre Energy East pipeline will be exported out of Canada.

Petro-Chemical Industry Is A Small Share of Quebec’s Economy

Refining jobs in Quebec are well paying and mostly union jobs, but much like the oil industry itself the refining sector involves large sums of money and yet employs very few people.

Ultramar’s Quebec City refinery (owned by Texas-based Valero) and Suncor’s refinery in Montreal employ five hundred people each or less than 0.03 per cent of Quebec’s working population. The production of plastics and chemicals by the Montreal Petrochemical Complex employs 7, 500 or 0.40 per cent of the working population in the city.  

“If it is assumed that each of the jobs directly at Quebec refineries results in up to 11 other jobs elsewhere in the Quebec economy (i.e. for every direct job, there are 11 other jobs from contractors, suppliers and spin-offs), the total for the entire economy is still about 12,000 jobs (or less), equivalent to about 0.30 per cent (or less) of the provincial total. Likewise, even if it is assumed that the Quebec refineries result in a very wide range of spin-offs, the impact on overall economic activity (Quebec GDP) is around $1.5 billion (or less), equivalent to about 0.50 per cent (or less) of the provincial total,” the report states.

Pipeline Construction Will Create A Few Short-Term Jobs in Quebec

The report estimates the economic impact of the construction of Energy East and Line 9 on Quebec’s economy will be 0.20 per cent annually over a four-year period. Line 9 will require very little construction whereas Energy East will involve laying of 1,600 kilometres of pipeline from southeast Ontario to Saint John New Brunswick and the building of marine oil transport ports in Quebec and New Brunswick.

“Once the initial capital investment (i.e. construction phase) is completed and the pipelines are in service, ongoing operations would have minuscule labour requirements and impact (less than 0.04 per cent/year with the Suncor coker and less than 0.02 per cent/year without it) on overall economy activity,” the report concludes.

A Pipeline Rupture Would Cost Billions

If the economic benefits of west-to-east pipelines for Quebec are “insignificant” a pipeline rupture “could have a huge impact on the environment, waterways, human society and public safety.” The Goodmann Group, a consulting firm specializing in energy economics estimates a major pipeline rupture in an urban centre such as Montreal could cost between five to ten billion dollars to clean up and result in a major loss of economic activity.

“Typically spill risks are socialized with local inhabitants (human, wildlife and plants) bearing large costs: the area where the spill occurs is often never fully restored; waterways and drinking water can be polluted; humans can lose their homes and livelihood and/or be subject to a deterioration in their quality of life; and wildlife and plant life are killed. Tar sands heavy crude is particularly difficult to clean up,” the report states.

Pipeline companies in Canada do not carry liability insurance for pipeline spills anywhere close to five billion dollars. Canada’s largest pipeline operator – Enbridge – has $685 million for all its operations.

“Quebec citizens should be concerned,” the report warns.

Refining Bitumen Puts Quebec’s GHG Reduction Targets in Jeopardy

“In the current Canadian context Quebec can play a key role: if the province rejects the pipeline projects, then tar sands expansion will be constrained – allowing more time for the emergence of green alternatives. Moreover, Quebec has tremendous risk exposure from Energy East, as this pipeline will use Quebec as a conduit to export enormous quantities of dirty oil from the tar sands", says Patrick Bonin of Greenpeace Canada.

Quebec has proposed greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions targets of a twenty-five per cent cut (1990 baseline) in the GHG emissions the province produces by 2020. These targets to reduce global warming emissions far surpass Canada’s own national emission reduction goals. Refining bitumen in Quebec, a heavy unconventional oil that produces up to forty per cent more GHG emissions to extract and refine than conventional oil, will put these provincial targets in jeopardy.  

“Not only would approval of the projects increase greenhouse emissions from refining more heavy crude in Quebec; but they have the potential to have a much greater incremental impact on Canada’s overall GHGs by enabling tar sands expansion,” the report concludes.

Refineries in Quebec currently lack the necessary equipment to refine large quantities bitumen, although it appears Suncor may make the two billion dollar investment to retrofit its Montreal refinery for bitumen. Bitumen needs to be ‘cooked’ longer during the refining process and at higher temperatures than conventional oil to be turned into liquid fuels.

Enbridge’s Line 9 pipeline project from Sarnia to Montreal was approved by the National Energy Board – Canada’s federal energy regulator – last March but faces two legal challenges that are ongoing. TransCanada announced earlier this month the pipeline company will apply for its 1.1 million barrels a day Energy East pipeline from Alberta to Saint John New Brunswick in mid-August of this year.

Image Credit: David Suzuki Foundation, Economics of Transporting and Processing Tar Sands Crudes in Quebec report, Enbridge, TransCanada's Energy East: Export Pipeline, Not For Domestic Gain Report

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Sediment from the Chaudière River, near the site of the Lac-Mégantic train derailment four months ago, shows high levels of contaminants according to testing done by Greenpeace Quebec and the Société pour vaincre la pollution (SVP). Despite months of cleanup operations sediments collected from the river show higher-than-acceptable levels of several chemicals, including cancer-causing polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs).

Quebec Environment Minister Yves-François Blanchet said the department continues to monitor the safety of the water, reports the Montreal Gazette, and will take into consideration the two groups' test results.

In late September Quebec’s environment department lifted a drinking-water ban for several downstream communities who rely on the Chaudière River for water.

“Sampling has not stopped, analyses have not stopped, the teams are still on the ground,” Blanchet said in the National Assembly Wednesday. He added “information is still publicly available on the Environment Ministry’s website, such that we know that there is no immediate threat.”

Both Greenpeace Quebec and SVP say pollutant levels in samples taken 4.7km downstream of the lake are 27 times higher than accepted levels.

The Lac-Mégantic derailment resulted in the release of an estimated 5.9 million litres of oil that burned or spilled into the town’s lake and the Chaudière river.

Recently Quebec environment updated those oil spill figures from a previously estimated 5.6 million litres.

The precise amount of oil released into the lake and river is still under question. The environment department estimates around 100,000 litres of oil contaminated the river although Greenpeace’s Patrick Bonin questioned that amount given the high level of contamination present in their samples. Researchers could both see and smell oil in river at the time of testing.

According to Bonin this is the second round of testing the groups have undertaken. Results in both instances were sent to the environment department.

The groups are calling on Quebec to release the details of its water sampling to the public, including what methods are in use and all results.

In October the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives released a report claiming lax federal regulation over the transport of petroleum products by rail led to the deadly Lac-Mégantic accident that killed 47 people.

“In my view, the evidence points to a fundamentally flawed regulatory system, cost-cutting corporate behaviour that jeopardized public safety and the environment, and responsibility extending to the highest levels of corporate management and government policy making,” wrote author Bruce Campbell, the centre’s executive director.

Shipments of oil by rail have increased by 28,000 percent since 2009.

Image Credit: Greenpeace Quebec via Facebook

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Recent Environment Canada reports show that the Harper administration does not have the policies in place necessary to meet Canada’s existing environmental commitments, which have already been criticised as being the feeblest in the industrialised world. For instance, Canada was the only country to weaken its climate target under the Copenhagen Accord, and has since become the only country to formally withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol. 

“At a time when institutions such as the World Bank and the International Energy Agency are calling for more climate action it is disappointing to have so many countries still being reluctant to move forward,” said Wendel Trio, Director of the European-based Climate Action Network and lead investigator for the 2013 Climate Change Performance Index, “Canada is a strong example of this lack of willingness to improve climate policies.”

“Canada has become the poster child for climate inaction, which represents a really long fall from where we were less than a decade ago,” added Patrick Bonin, Lead Climate-Energy and Arctic Campaigner at Greenpeace Canada. “It has been hard to watch the unraveling of a rational and reasonable approach to science, while at the same time seeing more devastating extreme weather impacts all around us, it just makes you wonder what it is going to take for this government to get it.”

“The world has had enough of Canada’s inaction on climate change," concluded Steven Guilbeault, Co-Founder and Senior Director of the Montreal-based NGO Equiterre, “It is clear that this government’s reckless fixation on the tar sands is going to cost us not only a safe and healthy future and economy for our children, but also our international credibility.”

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