Irving Oil and TransCanada Corp. announced that they have formed a joint venture to build a $300 million marine terminal at Canaport in St. John, New Brunswick, reports Reuters.
The new marine will enable Canadian producers to export oil sands crude to world markets.
“The Canaport Energy East Marine Terminal will connect TransCanada’s Energy East Pipeline to an ice-free, deep water port. It will allow Canadian producers direct access to world markets for exporting Canadian oil via the world’s largest crude carrying vessels,” Irving Oil president and CEO Paul Browning said.
The new pipeline and export terminal will give oil sands producers in landlocked Alberta, where heavy crude trades at a discount to the West Texas Intermediate benchmark, access to high-priced Atlantic markets for the first time.
Engineering and design work on the project will start in 2015. The pipeline is expected to be in service for deliveries to New Brunswick by 2018.
Irving also said that hundreds of jobs would be created during construction, and the terminal would employ up to 50 people in the long-term.
