Russ Girling, president and CEO of TransCanada Corp.Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press
Mexican authorities have awarded TransCanada Corp.another natural gas pipeline contract.
The Calgary-based company says it will invest about $400-million (U.S.) in a 413-kilometre pipeline between El Oro and Mazatlan, near Mexico's west coast.
The Mazatlan pipeline will connect with the $1-billion Topolobampo pipeline that TransCanada was awarded last week.
TransCanada will build, own and operate the two new pipelines through its Mexican subsidiary, Transportadora de Gas Natural del Noroeste.
Both projects are supported by 25-year natural gas transportation service contracts with the Comision Federal de Electricidad, or CFE, Mexico's federal power company.
"We are pleased to be working with the government of Mexico on new natural gas infrastructure that will bring its cleaner-burning natural gas to businesses and residents," said TransCanada president and CEO Russ Girling.
"These new projects build on our experience developing safe and reliable pipelines in Mexico and across North America."
TransCanada already has one of North America's largest networks of gas and oil pipelines, including two natural gas lines already operating in central Mexico. The company built, owns and operates the Guadalajara and Tamazunchale natural gas pipelines in central Mexico and will soon break ground on a Tamazunchale pipeline extension.
Besides its network of some 68,500 kilometres of natural gas pipelines that tap into virtually all major gas supply basins in North America, TransCanada is also developing one of North America's largest oil delivery systems, including the controversial Keystone XL pipeline designed to transport Canadian crude to refineries on the Texas Gulf Coast.
The company began work this summer on a $2.3-billion crude pipeline connecting an oil storage hub at Cushing Okla., to Texas refineries that is expected to start up in 2013. The Gulf Coast pipeline was initially part of TransCanada's $7.6-billion Keystone XL proposal but has been held up by political and environmental wrangling in the United States.
Meanwhile, TransCanada is also one of the continent's largest providers of gas storage and related services with approximately 380 billion cubic feet of storage capacity and has interests in more than 10,900 megawatts of power generation in Canada and the United States.