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A spokesperson said “TransCanada is pleased with the NEB approval of our North Montney project.”

The pipeline company had originally designed the North Montney Mainline to ship natural gas westbound toward LNG export projects on the B.C. coast, but those projects have been delayed or cancelled outright. The delays caused TransCanada to vary its request so it could ship that gas production eastbound — a controversial move, which has turned energy companies against each other.

Gas producers with assets in B.C. have said they need the pipeline to move natural gas to market, especially in the absence of any LNG export projects.

But producers with assets in Alberta have opposed the project, and intervened in the regulatory process, asking the NEB to delay its construction because it would feed into TransCanada’s existing gas network in Alberta and possibly exacerbate a glut in the Alberta Energy Company (AECO) market, further depressing prices.

“I think we were most disappointed with the timing of the North Montney Mainline,” said Peyto Exploration and Development Corp. president and CEO Darren Gee.

“It’s not that we ant to object to building more infrastructure in the Western Basin – the problem is we need egress right now, not connection,” Gee said, adding that the project is “premature” because it connects new supplies to the AECO market at a time when TransCanada is still trying to eliminate bottlenecks from the existing system.