MONTREAL: TransCanada announced Thursday it was cancelling plans to build an oil terminal in Quebec that was to be used to ship crude oil from western Canada to overseas markets.

In response to public outrage over the project that would have put endangered beluga whales at further risk in the Saint Lawrence River, company spokesman Tim Duboyce told public broadcaster Radio-Canada it was moving the terminal to Saint John, New Brunswick, on the Bay of Fundy.

In a statement TransCanada said it had listened to "local communities, key stakeholders and its customers" in coming to the decision.

"The company will be amending the Energy East (pipeline) application before the National Energy Board to remove a port in Quebec from the scope of the project," it said.

The Energy East pipeline was proposed to move 1.1 million barrels of oil per day from the Alberta oil sands to Canada's east coast refineries and a new terminal, after delays in another project — Keystone XL — that aims to move the oil southward through the American Midwest to US Gulf Coast refineries.

The nixed Quebec terminal marks another setback for TransCanada, after US authorities this week rejected its request to put off a review of the Keystone XL pipeline.

A halt in the review would perhaps have delayed a decision on building the pipeline until after the US presidential election in November 2016.