TransCanada Corporation (TransCanada) has filed a letter with the National Energy Board (NEB) seeking a 30-day suspension of the Energy East Pipeline and Eastern Mainline Project applications. The suspension will allow time to conduct a careful review of recent changes announced by the NEB regarding the list of issues and environmental assessment factors of the projects while understanding how these changes impact the projects' costs, schedules and viability.
Due to the significant changes to the regulatory process introduced by the NEB and the request for a 30-day suspension of the applications, TransCanada will cease recording Allowance for Funds Used During Construction (AFUDC) on the projects effective August 23, 2017, being the date of the NEB's announcement altering the terms of their assessment. Should TransCanada decide not to proceed with the projects after a thorough review of the impact of the NEB's amendments, the carrying value of its investment in the projects as well as its ability to recover development costs incurred to date would be negatively impacted.
"Apart from Energy East, we will continue to advance our $24 billion near-term capital program in addition to our longer-term opportunities," said Russ Girling, TransCanada's president and chief executive officer. "Our portfolio of high quality projects is expected to generate growth in earnings and cash flow to support an expected annual dividend growth rate at the upper end of an eight to 10 per cent range through 2020."
