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TORONTO/CALGARY — As Enbridge Inc. reels from the rejection by residents of Kitimat, B.C. of the Northern Gateway pipeline, a First Nations-led consortium is seeking to build an alternative project that would link Alberta’s oil sands to the British Columbia coast.

Eagle Spirit Energy Holdings Ltd. and Vancouver-based Aquilini Group say they have signed non-disclosure agreements with a “substantial number” of First Nation groups in northern B.C., including some “staunchly opposed” to the Enbridge project.

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The one-million barrel-per-day pipeline has a tentative 2020 start date once it secures a “social licence” from First Nations to operate, the group said at a media conference in Vancouver on Monday.

“The only licence that matters to do this [project] in British Columbia is the social licence from the First Nations community,” said Calvin Helin, chairman and president of Eagle Spirit Energy Holdings, noting that he spent a year and a half listening carefully to the feedback from and concerns of First Nations. The group will file an application with the National Energy Board only after it has addressed all First Nations’ concerns and issues.

Mr. Helin would not put a value on the Eagle Spirit project, but said the pipeline alone is comparable to the US$25-billion Trans Alaska pipeline that runs across the length of Alaska.