TransCanada Seeks $15 Billion in Damages From U.S. Over Pipeline
Ian Austen
The New York Times
January 7, 2016
OTTAWA, Ontario — TransCanada said Wednesday that it would seek $15 billion in damages over the Obama administration’s decision to cancel the company’s Keystone XL pipeline project.
The company is taking the unusual step of suing through the North American Free Trade Agreement, calling the decision “arbitrary and unjustified.” The Canadian business also filed a lawsuit in Houston asking that the decision be overturned.
“TransCanada has been unjustly deprived of the value of its multibillion-dollar investment by the U.S. administration’s action,” the company said in a statement. “Rather, the denial was a symbolic gesture based on speculation about the (false) perceptions of the international community regarding the administration’s leadership on climate change.”
The $3.1 billion Keystone XL pipeline would have connected Canada’s oil sands to American refineries on the Gulf Coast, offering the promise of improving prices. Canadian energy companies viewed the pipeline as the key to sustaining growth, since the United States buys the vast majority of petroleum produced by the oil sands.
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