Natural gas

LAWMAKERS in Alaska have awarded TransCanada an exclusive licence to build a gas pipeline to carry the North Slope's reserves to consumers in Canada and the continental US. TransCanada, Canada's biggest pipeline company, has proposed a 4.5bn cubic feet a day (cf/d) pipeline that would run 1,715 miles from a new gas-treatment plant at Prudhoe Bay, to Alberta. According to the company's proposal, the 48 inch pipeline's capacity could be expanded to 5.9bn cf/d. The $26bn-plus project would be the largest and most complex ever undertaken in the US. TransCanada hopes to bring the pipeline into service by 2019, but must first obtain approvals from US and Canadian regulators. Equally critical to th