TC Energy says its $15 billion claim for Keystone XL project thrown out by US tribunal

(Reuters) - Canada's TC Energy said on Tuesday a free trade arbitration tribunal had tossed out its claim to recover more than $15 billion from the U.S. government for the cancellation of its Keystone XL project.

The pipeline operator had submitted a formal request for arbitration under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 2021.

U.S. President Joe Biden had canceled the pipeline's permit a year after the NAFTA was terminated in July 2020. The pact was then replaced by the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).

TC Energy said the tribunal determined it did not have the authority to decide if the revocation of the Presidential Permit violated the obligations outlined under the NAFTA.

"This ruling does not align with our expectations and views of the plain interpretation of the protections NAFTA and the USMCA were designed to offer," TC Energy said on Tuesday.

Keystone XL would have carried 830,000 barrels per day of oil from Alberta in Canada to the U.S. Midwest, but was held up for more than a decade by environmental opposition and regulatory hurdles, before its permit was revoked.

In 2022, Alberta, Canada's largest oil-producing province, had also initiated a trade challenge to recover its investment of about C$1.3 billion ($949.95 million) in the pipeline.

($1 = 1.3685 Canadian dollars)

(Reporting by Vallari Srivastava in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)