Union Gas Limited president in a press release
"We have expressed concerns about the structure of the Energy East project for well over a year and we continue to have serious concerns about the negative impacts to our customers of a new higher-cost line with lower capacity, and the resulting impact of increased natural gas supply costs," said Steve Baker, Union Gas Limited president in a press release.
"While we support the concept of the Energy East project, we cannot support removing an existing, fully-used natural gas pipeline and replacing it with a new, smaller and more expensive pipeline."
TransCanada Corporation filed a project application with the National Energy Board of Canada (NEB) on Oct. 30 for the construction of the $12 billion Energy East Pipeline Project.
As part of this proposal, TransCanada filed an application to build the Eastern Mainline Pipeline Project in southern Ontario.
The proposed $1.5-billion project will provide 250 kilometres of natural gas pipeline in the Toronto-to-Montréal corridor. It will have the capacity to supply 600 million cubic feet per day supplied by natural gas from the northeastern U.S.
Union Gas Limited, a major natural gas storage, transmission and distribution company, supports the conversion of under-used natural gas pipeline capacity between Alberta and North Bay.
However, the company opposes TransCanada's proposal to convert a natural gas pipeline to oil between North Bay and Ottawa and replace it with a smaller gas pipeline. The project will reduce capacity by 20 per cent.
