Keystone XL’s Demise Prompts TC Energy to Slash 1,000 Jobs

(Bloomberg) -- TC Energy Corp. has let go 1,000 workers in both the U.S. and Canada after President Joe Biden canceled the Keystone XL oil pipeline project.

“A majority of the 1,000 are unioned workers who have been constructing on both sides of the border,” Terry Cunha, a spokesman for the Calgary-based company, said by email.

Biden withdrew a permit to build the pipeline within hours of assuming office Wednesday. Construction of the pipeline, which would have transported more than 800,000 barrels a day of oil sands crude from Alberta to Nebraska, had already started last year after the government of Alberta invested $1.1 billion into the project to jump-start work.

Building of the controversial, cross-border conduit that was first proposed more than a decade ago was authorized by President Donald Trump in 2017, just over a year after President Barack Obama rejected the project on environmental grounds.

Alberta, home to the world’s third largest oil reserves, viewed the line as essential for delivering its heavy crude to U.S. refineries at a time when alternate supplies from Latin America were dwindling. Environmentalists argued that the pipeline would stimulate expansion of carbon-intensive oil sands production, worsening global warming.