Enbridge Moving Towards Natural Gas and Renewable Energy

Enbridge Inc., North America’s largest pipeline company, is shifting its asset mix to reflect the energy transition underway across the world. Al Monaco, chief executive officer of the Calgary-based company, said his company is taking a “gradual” approach to energy transition. While it will continue to invest in oil pipelines, the company will also invest increasingly larger proportions of its capital to natural gas and renewable energy projects as consumers around the world demand lower-emitting forms of energy.

Currently, 55 percent of the company’s earnings are generated from its liquids pipeline business, roughly 40 percent from its gas transmission and storage business, and 4 percent from renewables, which consist primarily of offshore wind projects in the U.K. and Germany.

Enbridge has identified offshore wind opportunities in North America as well, but Monaco said the company currently believes there’s a better supply chain and more attractive power-purchase agreements in Europe.

“Supply chains are now extremely well developed in (Europe) in terms of engineering, equipment and the sheer know-how of how to deal with offshore wind projects. We also know that from a public policy perspective, Europe is quite advanced, and we see very good commercial models there,” Monaco said.

“I think the U.S. could be a good opportunity for the future. We’ve chosen to focus on Europe because that’s where the big prize is for us at the moment,” he said.