Late last week, after more than a year of often contentious debate, Enbridge Inc’s (TSX: ENB, NYSE: ENB) Northern Gateway Pipeline finally received an important sign-off: Canada’s National Energy Board (NEB) recommended that the country’s federal government approve the CAD7.9 billion project, albeit with 209 conditions.

The federal government has 180 days to review and approve the pipeline. And though it can’t unilaterally alter the aforementioned conditions, it can petition the NEB to adjust them.

Enbridge CEO Al Monaco acknowledged that the NEB has set tough conditions. Indeed, preliminary work and regulatory compliance have tacked on an estimated CAD1.4 billion to Enbridge’s earlier projected cost of CAD6.5 billion.

The 732-mile pipeline is expected to transport up to 525,000 barrels of crude oil per day from the oil sands in central Alberta to the west coast in British Columbia. That amount would account for one-third of oil sands production, based on 2011 numbers.

By 2025, production from Canada’s oil sands is forecast to grow to 4.5 million barrels of oil per day, according to the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers. And with some Canadian crude crowded out from the US market as a result of the prolific shale plays, it’s crucial for Canada to have the ability to export its crude output to foreign and emerging markets, particularly Asia.

Of course, the Northern Gateway Pipeline is not a done deal yet. Though we believe the project will ultimately garner approval from the federal government, numerous constituencies are still trying to extract their pound of flesh from Enbridge. In British Columbia, for instance, the project continues to face entrenched opposition from environmental groups, First Nations, and labor unions, all of whom wield considerable influence in the province.

Even so, despite its earlier opposition, BC’s provincial leadership essentially granted its imprimatur to the project in early November, which we expected, in part, because the prospect of greater tax revenue as well as other forms of monetary concessions would prove impossible for most politicians to resist. For that reason, in addition to the economic benefits, including job creation and the ability of Canada’s energy producers to command higher prices for their commodities in overseas markets, we expect the federal government will ultimately approve the project.

But that doesn’t mean Northern Gateway won’t continue to face challenges from some of the aforementioned constituencies, particularly the more than 130 First Nations groups that have signed a declaration against it, and which could try to delay construction via legal challenges.

As we’ve written previously, both Enbridge, which initiated consultations with First Nations groups back in 2005, and the federal government, which has appointed a special liaison to aboriginal groups, have undertaken efforts to pacify the project’s opponents. While no amount of concessions will likely sway activist types, continued opposition from at least some parties could simply be a negotiating tactic.

And while those efforts have caused the estimated cost of the project to rise by roughly 20 percent, RBC Dominion Securities analyst Robert Kwan says the overall cost of the pipeline as well as the revenues it’s expected to generate won’t move the needle for Enbridge as much as the media attention might suggest. After all, the company has CAD36 billion worth of projects under development through 2017.

As such, our interest in Northern Gateway is more about the precedent it establishes for creating the infrastructure necessary to ship Canada’s prodigious energy output to foreign markets. Our hope is that domestic opposition doesn’t take the country’s resource riches for granted, while the concessions necessary to secure approval for future pipeline projects aren’t so numerous as to render the cost of such an effort prohibitively expensive.