McDermott Will & Emery represented Irving Oil, a privately owned regional energy and marketing company that owns and operates Canada’s largest refinery, in forming a joint venture with TransCanada to develop and construct the proposed $300 million Canaport Energy East Marine Terminal at Irving Canaport in Saint John, New Brunswick.  Irving Oil will operate the Canaport Energy East Marine Terminal, which will connect the proposed $12 billion Energy East Pipeline project recently announced by TransCanada to an ice-free, deep water port.

The Energy East Pipeline will transport crude oil from Western North America to Montreal and Quebec City, Quebec and Saint John, New Brunswick.  The Energy East Pipeline will have the capacity to transport over one million barrels of oil per day.  At current crude oil prices, that represents almost $40 billion of oil that will be transported to Quebec and New Brunswick every year, creating economic opportunity at every stop.  The Energy East Pipeline and the Canaport Energy East Marine Terminal are subject to obtaining regulatory approval.

"The Energy East Pipeline is an historic opportunity to connect the oil resources of Western Canada and the Baaken region of the United States to world markets via Irving Oil's Canaport in Saint John, New Brunswick," said Timothy Alvino, a Corporate partner in McDermott's New York office who led the outside legal team for Irving Oil. "Canaport is ice free and its deep water can accommodate the world's largest crude carrying vessels. We are excited to have represented Irving Oil in this transaction."

McDermott has been a long-time trusted M&A/corporate advisor to the Irving Oil group of companies on a variety of transactions including Canaport LNG, a joint venture of Irving Oil and Repsol S.A. to construct, own and operate a receiving, storage and regasification facility also located at Canaport.

The proposed $300 million Canaport Energy East Marine Terminal adds to the significant infrastructure investment Irving Oil has made in the Canaport facility over the past several decades. Irving Oil imports over 100 million barrels of crude oil each year at Irving Canaport and has imported over two billion barrels of oil during 40 years of operation.

The project timeline for the Canaport Energy East Marine Terminal, which is expected to begin with engineering and design work in 2015, will coincide with Energy East Pipeline project developments. The Canaport Energy East Marine Terminal will be located adjacent to Irving Oil’s existing import terminal. The Energy East Pipeline is scheduled for completion in 2018 and thousands of jobs will be created during this massive construction project.

The McDermott team was led by Timothy Alvino in New York and included partners Scott Arrington, B. Ted Howes, John Sullivan, Meir Lewittes and Frank McCreay as well as associates Christopher Bloom, Daryl Kuo and Neil Reddy.   The team worked with local counsel Bennett Jones and McInnes Cooper.