Canada demands US court block shutdown of Line 5 oil pipeline
Canada petitioned a US federal court on Tuesday to block a Michigan state order to shut down a cross-border pipeline that supplies half of the oil to its eastern provinces.
The third-party brief filed in the US District Court for the
Western District of Michigan said Canadian operator Enbridge and the US state -
which are in mediation over the Line 5 conduit - must be given time to reach a
negotiated resolution.
"Line 5 is essential to our energy security,"
Canadian National Resources Minister Seamus O'Regan said in a statement. He
warned that "the shutdown of Line 5 ordered by Michigan would have
immediate and severe adverse impacts in Canada," causing job losses and
gas shortages.
Meanwhile, the top US fuel pipeline, which has been disabled
by a cyberattack for six days, sent workers to manually release some stored
supplies on Wednesday as fuel shortages across the Southeast worsened and
motorists fumed.
A ransomware attack on the Colonial Pipeline on Friday
halted 2.5 million barrels per day of fuel shipments in the most disruptive
cyberattack on US energy infrastructure.
The operator of the privately owned Colonial Pipeline
manually opened portions of the line to release needed supplies in Georgia,
Maryland, New Jersey and the Carolinas. It has accepted 2 million barrels of
fuel to begin a restart that would "substantially" restore operation
by week's end, the company said.
The supply crunch, amid panic buying by motorists, has
brought long lines and high prices at gas stations ahead of the Memorial Day
holiday weekend at the end of May, which traditionally marks the start of the
peak summer driving season.
Nearly a third of gas stations in metro Atlanta, Georgia and
in Raleigh and Charlotte, North Carolina, were without fuel, tracking firm
GasBuddy said. The average price for regular gasoline rose to $2.99 a gallon,
the highest since 2014.
Earlier Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he raised the
Line 5 issue with US President Joe Biden, remarking that "the energy
cooperation and partnership between Canada and the US is good for citizens on
both sides of our border."
Comments
Post a Comment