‘Degree of skepticism’ about pipeline progress

Construction crews remain busy driving piles for new facilities at Trans Mountain’s Westridge marine terminal on Burrard Inlet and clearing land at the Burnaby Mountain terminus of its pipeline, but industry leaders remain apprehensive about the expansion project.

“Everyone is guarded about what does this mean,” said Chris Gardner, president of the Independent Contractors and Business Association about last week’s announcement that construction on the $7.4-billion project had restarted.

“Are we stopping and starting and stopping and starting?” Gardner said. “There has been so much uncertainty, there is definitely a degree of skepticism about some of these announcements and activity we see.”

Last Tuesday’s announcement near Edmonton by Trans Mountain CEO Ian Anderson, accompanied by new Natural Resources Minister Seamus O’regan and Alberta Energy Minister Sonya Savage, marked the restart of putting new pipe in the ground for the twinned pipeline.

That touched off what Anderson said would be a 22-month timeline to have the twinned facility, nearly tripling its capacity to 890,000 barrels of oil per day, in service by late 2022.

In Burnaby, about 100 trucks per day are moving in and out of Trans Mountain’s terminal site, said project spokeswoman Ali Hounsel, as crews continue with clearing and stripping ground for expansion of its tank facilities and new water treatment system.

“It’s a busy, busy construction site,” Hounsel said. “Things are happening,” and have been happening since August following the federal government’s re-approval of the project in June.

Hounsel said Trans Mountain and its prime contractors have hired 2,200 workers.

At Trans Mountain’s Westridge Marine terminal, Hounsel said two barges are on site and have driven 25 of the 160 piles that will support expansion of the foreshore facilities for three new docks.

“We’re also working through the regulatory process, particularly on the land side,” Hounsel said.

As far as putting new pipe in the ground, while Anderson promised that would begin “before Christmas,” it will be later into 2020 before that work starts in B.C.

The actual pipeline construction is broken up into seven segments, referred to as spreads in industry jargon. The first two of those are in Alberta, the rest are in B.C. with Spread 7, the final section, running through the Lower Mainland.