Canada's Trans Mountain seeks last-minute route deviation on pipeline expansion (updated)

Canada Energy Partners

24/08/2023 24:13

(Rewrites story with details on Trans Mountain request for
route deviation)
       OTTAWA, Aug 23 (Reuters) - The Trans Mountain Expansion
(TMX) project has asked Canadian regulators for a route
deviation on a 1.3-kilometre (0.8 mile)section of pipeline in
British Columbia, months before the 600,000 barrel per day
project is due to start shipping crude.
        The application to the Canada Energy Regulator came to
light as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Wednesday said he was
confident the project was a solid investment and that interest
was high among Indigenous groups who wanted to buy a share of
the pipeline.
    The Canadian government bought the pipeline for C$4.5
billion ($3.3 billion) in 2018 to make sure the project was
completed after it ran into challenges, including opposition
from Indigenous peoples and environmentalists, but costs have
ballooned to C$30.9 billion.
        TMX is expected to start operating in the first quarter
of 2024.
        The regulator is weighing whether to allow Trans
Mountain Corp (TMC), the government-owned corporation building
the project, to deviate from its previously approved route on a
section of the pipeline just south of Kamloops in southern
interior British Columbia.
        The proposal has encountered opposition from the local
First Nation, whose traditional territory the pipeline crosses,
according to TMC's application to the regulator, dated Aug. 10.
        In the application TMC said it had encountered
"significant technical challenges" micro-tunnelling through hard
rock formations and requested to instead adjust the pipeline
route and use a conventional open trench.
    Last week the regulator gave TMC until end of day on
Wednesday to provide more information on its request.
    The expansion project will nearly triple the flow of crude
from Alberta's oil sands to Burnaby, British Columbia, and is
intended to unlock Asian markets for Canadian oil, which is now
mostly exported to the United States.    
    Now that it is nearing completion, the government has
approached Indigenous groups looking at buying a stake in the
pipeline.
    "I am very excited and interested that there are so many
Indigenous groups interested in purchasing the TMX pipeline.
We're engaged in conversations with them right now," Trudeau
told reporters in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island.
    "We are confident that the business case for the Trans
Mountain pipeline remains solid," he added, when asked whether
the government would have to sell the pipeline for less than it
cost to build it. 

($1 = 1.3566 Canadian dollars)

 (Reporting by Ismail Shakil and Steve Scherer in Ottawa and Nia
Williams in British Columbia; Editing by Bill Berkrot and Sonali
Paul)
 ((ismail.shakil@tr.com))