An under-the-radar hearing on the way shippers will contract volumes on Canada’s key crude oil export pipeline began last month in what could turn out to be the most important battle for control of Canadian oil resources. The more than a month-long hearing at the Canada Energy Regulator (CER)—planned to end on June 25—is expected to end up with the regulator determining how Canadian oil firms and U.S. refiners will pay to ship crude on Enbridge’s Mainline system over the next decade. Mainline, with the capacity to ship nearly 3 million barrels per day (bpd) of oil, is Canada’s biggest transporter of oil, carrying crude from oil-rich Alberta to markets in eastern Canada and the U.S. Midwest. The current pipeline contracting system expires on June 30, 2021. Mainline’s operator Enbridge has been operating the pipeline for decades under the so-called “common carrier” system, in which all of the huge […]