Teck pulls application to build Alberta oil sands mine

TORONTO (AP) — A Canadian company said Sunday that it has withdrawn its application to the federal government to approve a huge open-pit oil sands mine in Alberta.

Teck Resources Ltd.'s chief executive, Don Lindsay, said investors and customers increasingly want jurisdictions to have a framework in place that reconciles resource development and climate change. He said that ``does not yet exist here today.''

Teck said it not longer is seeking approval for its Frontier mining project and will write down its cost.

The $20.6 billion Canadian (US$15.5 billion) project would have created an estimated 7,000 construction jobs, 2,500 operating jobs and about $12 billion Canadian (US$9 billion) in federal income and capital taxes. But it was also expected to produce about 4 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions annually over 40 years.

Low oil prices and environmental concerns made construction unlikely.

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney said in a statement he was gravely disappointed.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government had until the end of the month to make its decision on whether to approve the project.

Last week, author Alice Munro and dozens of other Nobel Prize winners urged Trudeau to reject the project, calling fossil-fuel expansion an affront to the climate emergency and incompatible with Canada's pledge to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The withdrawal comes as barricades put by indigenous protesters are blocking rail service across Canada. Demonstrators have set up blockades in British Columbia, Ontario, Alberta and Quebec in solidarity with opponents of the Coastal GasLink pipeline project that crosses the traditional territory of the Wet'suwet'en First Nation in northwestern British Columbia.