Oil Sands Pin Hopes on Two Troubled Pipelines After Energy East

  • Producers look west, south as link to eastern Canada closes
  • Trans Mountain faces legal challenge; KXL stalled in Nebraska

The Athabasca Oil Sands near Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada.

Photographer: Brett Gundlock/Bloomberg
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TransCanada Corp.’s cancellation of the Energy East pipeline leaves Canadian oil producers more dependent than ever on the Keystone XL and Trans Mountain proposals, two projects facing ardent opposition in their own right.

Energy East would have given oil producers in Alberta and Saskatchewan, who are heavily dependent on buyers in the U.S., another market for their crude by carrying about 1.1 million barrels a day to refineries and a marine-shipping terminal in eastern Canada. TransCanada cancelledBloomberg Terminal that project on Thursday amid regulatory hurdles and weaker oil prices.