CALGARY – TransCanada Corp. (TSX:TRP) says it is disappointed by the National Energy Board’s latest rejection of its proposals on how the company charges customers to ship natural gas across the country.
TransCanada is studying its options and says it may launch an appeal after being informed of the rejection by the NEB on Tuesday.
The regulator told TransCanada that it had rejected in its entirety the company’s request for a review and variance of a March 27 decision covering tolls and service on the Canadian Mainline. It said reasons for dismissing the application would follow at a later date.
Although the NEB dismissed the application, it set a separate process for consideration of the tariff revisions that were included in the review and variance application.
“We are very disappointed that the NEB rejected our review and variance application without the opportunity for a full hearing and without issuing rationale for its rejection,” TransCanada president and CEO Russ Girling said in a release Wednesday.
“Our application was specifically designed to work within the new regulatory framework established by the NEB in its March 27 decision without trying to undo it.”
TransCanada has described the March decision as having created a new model for the mainline’s tolls that was a departure from what TransCanada applied for and from the regulatory framework that has been in place for decades.
The 257-page NEB decision set the multi-year fixed transportation toll from the Alberta-Saskatchewan boundary to southern Ontario at $1.42 per gigajoule.
TransCanada wants that increased to $1.52 gigajoule — still a big drop from the tolls the company has charged since 2011.
Among other things, TransCanada also wanted the NEB to implement its decision on Nov. 1, rather than July 1, when natural gas is in lower demand.
Stock in TransCanada, which disclosed the rejection after markets closed, was up a penny at $46.13 Wednesday on the Toronto Stock Exchange.