United States, Canadian energy regulators sign MOU

Gary Park

Petroleum News Calgary correspondent

United States and Canadian energy regulators have committed themselves to working closely on projects such as the growing cross-border trade in natural gas.

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Pat Wood and National Energy Board Chairman Ken Vollman signed a memorandum of understanding in Halifax May 10 to “enhance interagency coordination.”

Wood said the memorandum of understanding “will serve us well” as the two countries become increasingly interdependent in an evolving North American energy market.

Vollman said the interests of regulated companies and the public will be better served through improved regulatory cooperation. But Wood emphasized the objective is not to fold the regulators of the U.S., Canada and Mexico into one, while Vollman said a single regulator would not be able to take into account differing regional and national priorities.

Dionisio Perez-Jacome, president of Mexico’s Comision Reguladora de Energie, told reporters in Halifax that his country, although not a party to the memorandum of understanding, sees value in information sharing and cooperative deals.

Wood conceded that U.S. energy demands could overshadow the interests of its trading partners.

He likened the relationship to an Oreo cookie, with the United States as the icing “which always gets eaten first, so I don’t know if it is advantageous or disadvantageous to be sandwiched between two good allies,” he said.