While the Enbridge-backed Northern Gateway project was rejected by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government on Tuesday, the Calgary-based energy company will still benefit from the approval of its Line 3 pipeline replacement program, according to one of its long-term shareholders.
Leon Frazer & Associates Vice President Ryan Bushell told BNN in an interview that the Liberal government’s approval of Enbridge’s proposed Line 3 project is good news for the company.
"It effectively doubles [Line 3’s] capacity back to its original nameplate capacity," he told BNN. "The pipeline is old, needed refurbishment and this will allow them to go back to the sort of specs that it was originally designed for.”
The planned replacement to the half-century-old pipeline that transports oil from western Canada to the U.S. could see its current working capacity increase to 760,000 barrels per day.
Enbridge’s Line 3 program is estimated to cost $8.4 billion and planned to be in service by 2019.
Bushell, whose firm has held shares in the Calgary-based energy company since 1952, said he wasn’t surprised by the federal government’s decision to reject the Northern Gateway pipeline across northern British Columbia.
“I don’t think that was on the numbers at all for Enbridge — certainly we weren’t banking on that,” he said. “With the change in the pricing environment for crude oil, there isn't the sort of glaring need for as many exports pipelines as there would've have been say three or four years ago.”
But Middlefield Group’s deputy chief investment officer Rob Lauzon told BNN that Ottawa’s decisions signal the government is more willing to approve brownfield projects instead of entirely new pipelines – and that could benefit companies like Enbridge.
“The bigger you are, the easier that is and TransCanada and Enbridge have a whole host of pipelines so that's a positive," Lauzon said.
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