CPPIB pours $1.2 billion into 16,000-km U.S. pipeline network
Statement from Shift Action for Pension Wealth and Planet Health on CPPIB pouring $1.2 billion into 16,000-km U.S. pipeline network
For Immediate Release: August 13, 2024
Toronto, ON | Traditional territories of the Wendat, Anishnaabeg, Haudenosaunee, Chippewas, and Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation - In yet another risky bet on climate failure, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) just announced its fifth investment in private fossil fuel assets this year. CPPIB is investing $1.2 billion in Denver-based Tallgrass Energy, which operates over 16,000 kilometres of oil and gas pipelines across 14 states.
CPPIB’s investment in Tallgrass Energy further entrenches Canada’s $632-billion national retirement fund’s exposure to the continued operation and expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure. This is a high-risk gamble that the world will continue its dependence on oil and gas and fail to limit global heating to 1.5℃ above pre-industrial levels. Achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 and averting the worst impacts of climate change necessitates a rapid phase-out of oil and gas production and early retirement of fossil fuel assets. Contrary to CPPIB’s commitment to net-zero emissions by 2050 across all scopes, Tallgrass Energy has no net-zero target and no plan to phase out its pipeline assets in line with global climate goals.
“Even as Canadians face another summer of devastating heatwaves, wildfires and floods, CPPIB continues to risk our national pension fund on the fossil fuel infrastructure that’s causing these unnatural disasters,” says Patrick DeRochie, Senior Manager at Shift Action for Pension Wealth & Planet Health. “As leading institutional investors in Canada and around the world exit this dead-end sector, CPPIB seems hell-bent on further exposing Canadians to the risks of fossil fuels while pretending that it’s somehow about ‘decarbonization’.”
CPPIB cynically calls Tallgrass an “energy infrastructure company”, obscuring the fact that its core business is transporting oil and gas. The Tallgrass acquisition was brokered by CPPIB’s dubiously-named “Sustainable Energies” group– a portfolio that includes renewable energy, energy efficiency and conservation, and agriculture companies, but also oil and gas producers, pipeline companies, gas-fired power producers and carbon capture utilization and storage (CCUS) infrastructure for oil and gas.
This is CPPIB’s fifth transaction in the fossil fuel sector in 2024 alone, following:
A US$300 million commitment to fracking expansion in Ohio, via Encino Energy, which is 98% owned by CPPIB;
A $1 billion investment in Wolf Midstream, 100% owned by CPPIB, to increase the natural gas liquids capacity of Wolf’s NGL North System;
A merger between Aera Energy, which was 49% owned by CPPIB, and California Resources Corporation, which saw CPPIB take an 11% stake in California’s largest oil and gas producer;
The proposed US$6.2 billion acquisition by CPPIB and Global Infrastructure Partners of Allete, a major U.S. electric utility player that includes renewable energy and electricity distribution assets across the U.S. Midwest, but also a fleet of coal- and gas-fired power plants and a lignite coal mine.
Background information on Tallgrass Energy
Oil: Tallgrass operates three crude oil pipelines and nine storage terminals with the capacity to transport about 700,000 barrels per day and store more than 8.3 million barrels.
Gas: Tallgrass operates an 11,000-km fossil gas pipeline network and 2,400 km of fossil gas gathering and processing facilities. Tallgrass claims that its Rockies Express Pipeline is the first interstate fossil gas pipeline in the U.S to be certified by Project Canary to carry “carbon-neutral natural gas.” CPPIB helped raise US$111 million in funding for Project Canary in February 2022. A 2023 report from Oil Change International found that Project Canary consistently failed to capture pollution events like methane releases and is an aggressive attempt by the gas industry to greenwash its operations and justify expansion. In August 2023, Project Canary changed its leadership and shifted its strategy away from so-called “responsibly-sourced gas” certifications.
Tallgrass system map. Accessed on August 13, 2024.
Contact information for interview requests:
Patrick DeRochie, Senior Manager, Shift Action for Pension Wealth & Planet Health
416-576-2701
Shift Action for Pension Wealth and Planet Health is a charitable initiative that works to protect pensions and the climate by bringing together beneficiaries and their pension funds to engage on the climate crisis.
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