PetroChina Canada will no longer be a committed shipper on the Trans Mountain oil pipeline after assigning its contracts to another party, the company said in a letter filed with the Canada Energy Regulator, dated Oct. 10.
The recently expanded Trans Mountain pipeline has capacity to ship 890,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude from Alberta’s oil sands to the Port of Vancouver in British Columbia. The company is a subsidiary of China’s top oil-producing firm PetroChina and holds six assets in western Canada, including the MacKay River and Dover oil sands projects and a stake in the LNG Canada liquefied natural gas project, due to start operating next year.
A spokesperson for PetroChina Canada did not immediately respond to a request for comment on why the company had given up its committed shipping agreements.
PetroChina Canada wrote to regulators to say it was withdrawing as an intervenor in a long-running dispute between Trans Mountain and its committed shippers over pipeline tolls.
“PCC has now assigned these agreements to another party and will not be a committed shipper going forward,” the letter said.
PetroChina did not name the other party.
(Reporting by Nia Williams in British Columbia Editing by Chris Reese and Diane Craft)