British Columbia Vote Risks Oil-Sands Exports

British Columbia’s provincial election threatens to stymie efforts by Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. and other Alberta oil-sands companies to sell crude to Pacific markets.

Adrian Dix, 49, whose New Democratic Party is leading in polls ahead of tomorrow’s vote, opposes plans to pipe oil across the country’s westernmost province for shipment by tanker to Asia. Premier Christy Clark, 47, whose ruling Liberals trail Dix by nine points in an Angus Reid Public Opinion poll, has laid out five conditions for her to support Enbridge Inc.’s planned conduit through British Columbia, one of the two lines proposed.