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(Reuters) – Canada named senior energy industry executive Dawn Farrell on Friday to lead a new office designed to fast-track the review and approval of natural resources projects such as mines and pipelines, a process that can take a decade.
Prime Minister Mark Carney announced the major projects office earlier this year, saying streamlining will boost gross domestic product and help offset the damage from U.S. tariffs.
Farrell, who was CEO of the Trans Mountain Pipeline from 2022 to 2024, and her team will identify projects in the national interest and help speed up their development. This should reduce the approval timeline for major projects to a maximum of two years, Carney’s office said in a statement.
“For too long, the construction of major infrastructure has been stalled by arduous, inefficient approval processes, leaving enormous investments on the table.”
Farrell’s office will be based in Calgary, the capital of Canada’s oil patch.
Ottawa has yet to designate any projects as being of national significance.
In a statement, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers said Farrell’s appointment, and creation of the office, were “concrete steps towards making Canada an energy superpower and send a positive signal to industry and investors.”
As CEO of Trans Mountain, Farrell oversaw a multibillion dollar expansion of the pipeline’s capacity that was completed last year. She was CEO of utility company TransAlta from 2012 to 2021.
Reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by Richard Chang
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