TransCanada to explain liability to Senate Committee Monday

By Bradners’ Alaska Legislative Digest

The Senate Judiciary Committee will hear TransCanada Corp. explain past partner liability issues in a briefing Monday, Feb. 25. TransCanada is the sole qualifying applicant under Gov. Sarah Palin’s solicitation for gas pipeline proposals, but questions have surfaced in the Legislature over a $9 billion liability the Canadian pipeline company has with partners that withdrew from a 1980s consortium formed to build an Alaska gas pipeline. TransCanada maintains that the company formed to build a gas pipeline in Alaska is a separate legal entity that is not affected by any obligations to partners in the former consortium. Legislators are concerned, however, that uncertainties over the debt may impede TransCanada in bringing partners into a project to build the $30 billion-plus Alaska gas pipeline. ConocoPhillips has cited the TransCanada debt issue as an obstacle for it in forming a partnership to do an Alaska pipeline.