恩布里奇、TC Energy首席执行官淡化关税风险，因为美国仍提供最高回报

CEOs at Canadian pipeline companies Enbridge (NYSE:ENB) and TC Energy (NYSE:TRP) sought Friday to downplay worries over potential U.S. tariffs, saying their companies do not expect to suffer a "material impact" if President Trump targets oil and gas imports from Canada.

"We've got tariff concerns out there, but there's such a hard-wiring of the energy system in North America, we just don't see that as a material impact. And I think given what we're seeing from customers, that's actually bearing out in reality," Enbridge (NYSE:ENB) CEO Greg Ebel said on his company's earnings conference call. "Canadian oil will continue to flow south."

Enbridge's (ENB) natural gas transmission network spans 31 U.S. states, four Canadian provinces, and operates offshore in the Gulf of Mexico, and its Mainline network is North America's largest oil pipeline system, moving crude from western Canada to markets in eastern Canada and the U.S. Midwest.

So the company views the impact on volumes in its systems to be "negligible in a tariff situation,” Colin Gruending, Enbridge's (ENB) president of liquids pipelines, said on the call.

"We do not anticipate any material impact on our financial performance" from tariffs, TC Energy (NYSE:TRP) CEO François Poirier said on his company's earnings call, adding that its "regulated Canadian natural gas pipelines business, which transports gas to be exported to the U.S. by our shippers, is protected against higher costs or loss of volumes."

TC Energy (TRP) expects to keep its discretionary spending focused on the U.S., and Poirier said "right now we see the highest risk-adjusted returns being in the United States... The vast majority of our discretionary capital is going, and we expect that it will continue to go, into the United States."

The threat of tariffs has revived questions about finding new export routes for Canadian energy, but Ebel said it but it would take "real actions, laws, regulation to attract the capital" needed for Enbridge (ENB) to consider a shift in its approach to develop any new energy export projects.

On the call, Ebel laid out numerous criteria such as legal guarantees for a pipeline, the removal of various environmental policies, more funding for Indigenous participation, and better indications of costs and financial returns before the company would consider reviving something like the Northern Gateway pipeline or other export projects.

Enbridge (ENB) and its investors lost hundreds of millions of dollars when Canada's government rejected plans for the Northern Gateway pipeline in 2016 as they were nearing the finish line, which was "a powerful reckoning," he said.

Enbridge (ENB) ended Friday's trading -3.9% after reporting Q4 net earnings of C$493M, or C$0.23/share, down sharply from C$1.73B, or C$0.81/share, in the year-earlier quarter, as EBITDA from its liquids pipelines operations fell 3.6% Y/Y to C$2.35B, but rose 10% for its gas transmission business to C$1.15B, while gas distribution Ebitda more than quadrupled to C$1.02B from the year-ago period.

TC Energy (TRP) closed -3.1% after Q4 attributable income fell to C$971M, or C$0.94/share, from C$1.46B, or C$1.41/share, in the year-earlier quarter, partly due to the sale of Portland Natural Gas Transmission System and lower earnings from the Coastal GasLink gas pipeline compared to a year earlier when it had recognized a $200M incentive payment.