The Globe and Mail reports in its Friday edition that TC Energy expects to place $8.2-billion worth of projects into service by the end of the year, driven by the surging demand for natural gas all over North America. The Globe's Emma Graney writes that government policies across the continent have become "increasingly supportive" of development that can help meet unprecedented demand growth, chief executive officer François Poirier told analysts on an earnings call Thursday. That includes pipelines and power plants fired by natural gas. Mr. Poirier pointed to recent federal policy developments in Canada, for example, that he said have improved the regulatory environment for projects of national interest such as LNG Canada phase 2, which is supplied by TC Energy's Coastal GasLink pipeline. The company's latest forecast has North American natural gas demand increasing by 45 billion cubic feet a day by 2035, driven primarily by an expected tripling of liquefied natural gas exports, unprecedented power demand from data centres and coal-to-gas conversions. In the United States, roughly 40 gigawatts of coal-fired generation is expected to retire over the next decade, most of which will likely be replaced by natural gas.