Kinder Morgan round-up: Friday 24 October 2014

Canada’s chief energy regulator said yesterday that a municipality along the route of a crude-oil pipeline can’t stop an affiliate of Kinder Morgan Energy Partners L.P. from accessing areas for a proposed expansion.

The NEB said the municipality of Burnaby, a suburb of Vancouver, must allow Kinder Morgan Canada to access a proposed route for expanding its Trans Mountain pipeline, which connects Alberta’s oilsands to the Pacific Coast.

“The order prevents the City of Burnaby from blocking Trans Mountain from carrying out the required surveys and technical studies,” the NEB said in a statement. “The Board also ruled that it has the legal authority to consider constitutional questions relating to its own jurisdiction.”

In related news, elections BC says Kinder Morgan does not need to register as a third-party advertiser in the province’s civic election campaign.

A Vancouver-area member of Parliament asked Elections BC look into the issue, saying Kinder Morgan is running advertisements about the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion during the municipal election period.

Burnaby-Douglas New Democrat MP Kennedy Stewart said the pipeline proposal is a key campaign issue for several municipalities and he described Kinder Morgan’s adverts as an attempt to sway voters.

However Jodi Cook, Elections BC manager of provincial electoral finance, said in a letter that Kinder Morgan’s advertising doesn’t meet the definition of election advertising.

Edited from various sources by Elizabeth Corner

Sources: Wall Street Journal, The Globe and Mail

Read the article online at: https://www.worldpipelines.com/business-news/24102014/kinder-morgan-round-up-friday-24-october-2014/