CALGARY, Alberta, Nov 29 (Reuters) – Enbridge Inc’s proposed C$5.5 billion ($5.3 billion) pipeline to British Columbia poses a raft of environmental risks, according to a new report that signals the project will become the next battleground over the future of Canada’s oil sands.

The study by a trio of environmental groups, released on Tuesday, comes on the heels of a U.S. decision to push back approval of TransCanada Corp’s Alberta-to-Texas Keystone XL pipeline by more than a year.

The delay has led the Canada’s oil industry and Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government to intensify their emphasis on exporting oil sands-derived crude to Asia.

The Enbridge project, known as the Northern Gateway pipeline, is the first attempt at doing that in scale.

But the new report – issued by the Natural Resources Defense Council, Pembina Institute and Living Oceans Society - says the project would threaten native communities, the salmon fishery and wildlife habitat on the West Coast.

The report uses last year’s Enbridge pipeline rupture and oil spill in Michigan, and even the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan, as examples of why governments and regulators should block the proposal to bisect the rugged Western Canadian province with steel pipe.

Northern Gateway would move 525,000 barrels of crude a day to the port of Kitimat, British Columbia, where it would be loaded onto tankers and shipped to Pacific Rim refiners. The project is a key part of the Conservative government’s plans for a National Energy Strategy.

CALGARY, Alberta, Nov 29 (Reuters) – Nexen Inc said on Tuesday it will sell 40 percent of its British Columbia shale gas holdings to a group led by Japan’s Inpex Corp for C$700 million ($680 million) in the latest Asian foray into Canada’s rich unconventional resources.

Nexen shares surged 6 percent to C$16.20 on the Toronto Stock Exchange as investors digested a positive development following a string of disappointments, including this month’s loss of a long-held production contract in Yemen and struggles with its Long Lake oil sands project.

The deal – to include an upfront payment for half the amount and the rest in capital spending by Inpex and partner JGC Corp – marks the close of Nexen’s year-long search for a co-venturer to develop lands that could hold as much as 38 trillion cubic feet of gas.

Inpex joins a rush of Asian-based investors that have entered partnerships to develop such reserves, including Malaysia’s Petronas, Korea Gas Corp and Mitsubishi Corp , also of Japan.

Like Petronas’s tie-up with Calgary-based Progress Energy Resources Corp , Nexen and Inpex will study developing a liquefied natural gas plant on the West Coast as a way to supply markets across the Pacific and avoid the North American gas market, which is glutted with burgeoning shale supplies.

“The next phase with Inpex is to study those choices and determine if we have a feasible and attractive option.” Nexen Chief Executive Marvin Romanow said in an interview. “So we plan to evaluate that over the next few years.”

It is a nascent industry in Canada. A trio of companies led by Apache Corp plans the country’s first LNG plant at the port of Kitimat, British Columbia, as companies keep improving the technology they use to produce gas trapped in tightly stacked rock.

CALGARY, Alberta, Nov 29 (Reuters) – Enbridge Inc’s proposed C$5.5 billion ($5.3 billion) pipeline to British Columbia poses a raft of environmental risks, according to a new report that signals the project will become the next battleground over the future of Canada’s oil sands.

The study by a trio of environmental groups, released on Tuesday, comes fast on the heels of a decision to push back approval of TransCanada Corp’s Alberta-to-Texas Keystone XL pipeline by more than a year.

The delay has led the Canada’s oil industry and Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government to intensify their emphasis on exporting oil sands-derived crude to Asia.

The Enbridge project, known as the Northern Gateway pipeline, is the first attempt at doing that in scale.

But the new report – issued by the Natural Resources Defense Council, Pembina Institute and Living Oceans Society - says the project would threaten native communities, salmon fishery and wildlife habitat on land and in waters off the West Coast.

The report uses last year’s Enbridge pipeline rupture and oil spill in Michigan, and even the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan, as examples of why governments and regulators should block the proposal to bisect the rugged Western Canadian province with steel pipe.

Northern Gateway would move 525,000 barrels of crude a day to the port of Kitimat, where it would be loaded onto tankers and shipped to Pacific Rim refiners. The project is a key part of the Harper government’s plans for a National Energy Strategy.

CALGARY, Alberta, Nov 25 (Reuters) – Imperial Oil Ltd and Ottawa have resumed talks over a financial support package for the Mackenzie gas pipeline in the Far North, but the company would not say on Friday if it was any closer to proceeding with the C$16.2 billion (US$15.4 billion) project.

Discussions aimed at making the long-delayed development economically viable restarted some time in the second-half of this year after the two sides took a “hiatus” before the last federal election in May, Imperial spokesman Pius Rolheiser said. He declined to offer details.

“I’m not going to go any further in terms of what may or may not be under discussion except to say that we continue to be in discussion,” Rolheiser said.

The pipeline, which would carry up to 1.2 billion cubic feet of natural gas to southern markets from the Mackenzie Delta on the Beaufort Sea coast, is several years behind schedule.

It won regulatory approval nearly a year ago, but is pressured by high construction costs and questionable returns due to weak gas markets as the industry develops cheap shale reserves across the continent.

Imperial and its partners have sought a multibillion-dollar support package to improve the economics. It would include public funding for roads, airstrips and other infrastructure in the sparsely populated and largely undeveloped Northwest Territories.

The territory’s premier and one of the project’s biggest champions, Bob McLeod, told Reuters on Friday that he understood there were positive moves on that front. Communities across the region have been hoping for years that the project would proceed so they could win economic benefits.