The event began with opening remarks by EPRINC President Lucian Pugliaresi and Canadian Political Minister Martin Loken. Both stressed the importance of a cohesive trade partnership between the US and Canada. These remarks were echoed in the keynote speech by Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Neil Chatterjee, who also added insight into some regulatory changes that are underway at FERC that could improve the processes for energy trade in particular.
After the keynote speech, the panel discussion, led by the Embassy’s Rachel McCormick, delved deep into the challenges of advancing North American energy infrastructure, mainly focused in certain categories. These were permitting and regulatory changes, trade agreement (NAFTA) changes, and changes in the way the countries worked together to come up with strategy for energy trade. Some other topics such as the recent test of the North American energy market’s resilience after Hurricane Harvey and the specific issues with pipelines in a country like the United States with both state and federal laws were also discussed.
After some closing remarks by Lucian Pugliaresi, a cocktail reception on the 6th floor rooftop terrace wrapped up the evening.
In August, EPRINC and PetroNerds published a paper entitled “Building Out the North American Crude Oil Pipeline Infrastructure.” That paper lays out many of the issues touched upon during the panel discussion, and is available here.
Embassy Event Speakers:
Welcome Remarks: Lucian Pugliaresi, EPRINC and Martin Loken, Political Minister, Embassy of Canada
Keynote remarks: Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Neil Chatterjee
Panel moderator: Rachel McCormick, Head – Energy and Environment Section, Embassy of Canada
Panelists: Governor James Blanchard, DLA Piper, Marty Durbin, American Petroleum Institute, Andrew Black, Association of Oil Pipe Lines, Diana Furchtgott-Roth, Manhattan Institute
The event agenda can be found here along with photos from the event here and here.