Trudeau Batting A Thousand; What Goes Around Comes Around -- August 30, 2018

See this link for background.

Part 2 of this note is here.

Canada: the country that can't close a deal.

Oil: Canada's big income generator. Now landlocked. Four Canadian pipelines killed outright or stalled.

• Enbridge: Northern Gateyway -- killed by Trudeau.
• Enbridge Line 3: stalled in Minnesota by friends of Trudeau, Obama
• TransCanada: Keystone XL, killed by Obama
• TransCanada: TransMountain stalled but ....

... death knell for Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion project? Some will say yes, some will say no.

But here's the CTV headline: court ruling quashes approval of Trans Mountain.

You can go with the headline or read all the "what ifs", "buts" and, "maybes" in the story ....

This may be most concerning:

The Federal Court of Appeal has quashed Ottawa's approval of the contentious Trans Mountain pipeline expansion.

The decision means the National Energy Board will have to redo its review of Kinder Morgan Canada's project.

In a written decision, the court says the energy board's review was so flawed that the federal government could not rely on it as a basis for its decision to approve the expansion.

Wow, what if the new review suggests that the project could do irreparable harm to British Columbia?

I can't imagine this getting resolved within two years, and, wow, the First Nations have huge leverage and are in a win-win -- either they kill the project and get a psychological victory, or they cash in. Not telling what they will do, but I can guess.

Investors? Yawn. Apparently the share price was baked into the court ruling. On a down day for the market, TRP is down about half a percent. Yawn.

Back to Trudeau. Maybe time to "work" with Trump on trade.

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Idle Rambling

There seems to be a consistent story line when it comes to oil companies / pipeline companies and "First Nations" (generic): a failure on the part of the oil companies / pipeline companies to maintain really, really good notes and really, really good documentation.

It seems that "First Nations" seldom enter the process early on -- for whatever reason -- and then only after the decision affects them ("First Nations") do they get actively involved.

The oil companies / pipeline companies need to aggressively get the "First Nations" involved from the get-go and if they get no cooperation, get the courts involved early, and keep great, great documentation.

And, as noted, early in the blog -- wow, I must have written this a decade ago -- "First Nations" can and will claim "ownership" on any land in the western hemisphere.