Oil - Pipelines

John Carruthers, president of Enbridge's Northern Gateway unit, said a number of issues need to be sorted out before construction can begin, including winning additional support from aboriginal communities along the 525,000 barrel-per-day line's route through northern British Columbia

"We have stated that the earliest in-service date was 2018," Carruthers said following a speech to a Calgary business audience. "That's quickly evaporating because we need to have this time to meet with people. The focus is on re-engagement, not the in-service date."

VANCOUVER - The city of Vancouver says it will go to the Federal Court of Appeal on Friday over Kinder Morgan's proposed expansion of its Trans Mountain pipeline.

The city wants a judicial review of whether the National Energy Board should consider climate change in its assessment of the project.

Vancouver officials have already asked the board, which said it could not take the global issue into account.

The chief of the Lower Nicola Indian Band south of Kamloops, B.C., whose territory is crucial to the $5.4-billion Kinder Morgan expansion project, wrote a strongly worded letter to the Prime Minister today about his "serious reservations" about the project.  

A major oil spill in Canada's western Arctic would likely spread quickly and foul oceans around Alaska, and possibly as far west as Russia.

The research, funded by the World Wildlife Fund, comes as the National Energy Board prepares to consider blowout prevention plans in two separate proposals for offshore energy drilling.

The National Energy Board has ordered Enbridge Inc. to stop work along its Line 3 oil pipeline in Manitoba after an inspection earlier this month revealed numerous environmental and safety concerns.

Line 3 has been carrying crude between Alberta and Wisconsin for nearly half a century. Enbridge announced plans earlier this year to replace the pipeline in its entirety — a $7.5 billion undertaking that would be the largest project in the company's history.

The U.S. Eastern Seaboard is being opened to offshore oil and gas exploration for the first time in decades with the Obama administration's approval Friday of sonic cannons that can pinpoint energy deposits deep beneath the ocean floor.

The decision dismays environmentalists worried about the immediate impact of the sonic cannons, which shoot sound waves 100 times louder than a jet engine through waters shared by whales and turtles.

Saving endangered species was their best hope of extending a ban against offshore drilling off the U.S. Atlantic coast.

Enbridge is facing a startling number of new First Nations lawsuits, challenging the constitutionality of the Harper’s government decision in June to approve the controversial Northern Gateway pipeline.  

Eight First Nations -- from Haida Gwaii to Yinka Dene territory west of Prince George – have launched legal challenges, since Friday.  Nine more, were launched earlier this year, said the West Coast Environmental Law organization.

Fort Chipewyan, Canada - Dr. John O'Connor is the first physician to speak out about a possible adverse link between the oil sands and human health. While working in Fort Chipewyan, he became increasingly concerned about the growing number of rare cancers he saw among his patients in Fort Chipewyan.

The B.C. government has written directly to about 60 hereditary chiefs of the Gitxsan First Nation, outlining a multimillion-dollar gas-pipeline benefits deal.

In the letter, the government offers the Gitxsan about $12-million, plus a signing bonus of over $2-million, if it will allow two pipelines to cross territorial lands.