TransCanada pipes Pennsylvania gas to Ontario
The gas stoves in the Greater Toronto Area may not have flickered on Thursday. But their blue flames, fuelled for decades largely by products pulled from the ground in Western Canada, were suddenly very different.The phrase "Coals to Newcastle" does come to mind.
For the first time, some of the gas flowing into the Golden Horseshoe came from Pennsylvania.
On Nov. 1, TransCanada Corp. began pumping gas from the U.S. Marcellus field across the Canadian border just north of Lewiston, N.Y. Although some U.S. gas has found its way into Ontario for many years – from Oklahoma, Michigan and elsewhere – Central and Eastern Canada have, since the 1950s, largely relied on Alberta energy.
The advent of Marcellus gas stands to fracture that lengthy history. Beginning last March, TransCanada spent $130-million to reverse and expand pipelines running from the Niagara Peninsula to Toronto. On Thursday, it began pumping nearly 400 million cubic feet per day of Pennsylvania product into the province. That is equivalent to 16 per cent of the average daily gas demand in Ontario.
“It’s the first time that this reservoir of gas has reached Canada,” said Karl Johannson, president of natural gas pipelines for TransCanada.
It’s a dramatic shift. The pipeline carrying the Marcellus gas once carried Canadian product south into the United States....MORE
