Canadian First Nations groups now back in pipeline spotlight

Gary Park

for Petroleum News

TC Energy has disclosed it is holding talks with First Nations groups in Alberta and British Columbia about a potential deal to acquire a stake in the company's natural gas pipeline network, NGTL. Meetings started before Christmas and are expected to continue in Edmonton said Nillo Edwards, executive director of the B.C.-based First Nations Major Projects Coalition that works with Indigenous communities that are interested in equity positions in major projects that cross traditional territories.

Edwards said the prospect of deals should reinforce the need for a federally backed Indigenous loan guarantee program, although he said the details of a potential loan agreement have yet to be worked out.

Ontario, Alberta and Saskatchewan have already launched indigenous loan guarantee programs, while the federal government has said it will work on developing a lending program "to help facilitate Indigenous equity ownership in major natural resource projects" with details to come in the 2024 federal budget.

TC Energy's NGTL, spanning more than 24,600 kilometers and including a natural gas export terminal that's already under construction in Kitimat on the northern British Columbia coast, is an obvious candidate for Indigenous investment, and finding a role for aboriginal players in NGTL's related 670-kilometer GasLink system would help TC Energy handle cost overruns in the GasLink project where cost estimates have climbed C$11.2 billion in just the last three years.

--GARY PARK