Kinder Morgan boss says work on pipeline to resume soon
EDMONTON The head of Kinder Morgan Canada says work is to resume next month to prepare the route for the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion.
Ian Anderson says the company will secure, survey and prepare the right-of-way in coming months, and First Nations will monitor the work to look for traditional artifacts and medicines.
“We anticipate laying physical pipe in a prepared, surveyed, environmentally protected right-of-way early next year,” Anderson said Friday. A completion date for the project is to be announced later.
“The project has been in a suspended mode for a good number of months,” said Anderson. “We’re ramping up hard and we’re evaluating schedule.
“The most important thing for me at this point is to get started to demonstrate to Canadians and to our prospective new owner that this project can be executed in a manner that serves the interests of everybody.”
The project is intended to expand an existing Trans Mountain line to the B.C. coast to allow oilsands bitumen from Alberta to be shipped to foreign markets.
Alberta says the line is critical given oil price discounts the province must swallow because of pipeline bottlenecks and lack of access to markets outside the United States.
The pipeline has been the focus of debate, confrontation and court challenges. The B.C. government, environmental activists and some Indigenous groups, particularly those on the coast, all oppose it.
Kinder Morgan Canada suspended work on the project in April, saying the dispute had put the line’s financial viability at risk. In late May, the federal government agreed to buy the $4.5-billion pipeline to ensure the expansion was built, but the Liberals say they don’t plan to be the long-term owner.
The regulatory hurdles may not be over. Sohi and Anderson acknowledged the federal takeover may be subject to U.S. approval because the purchase includes the Puget Sound pipeline.
“We are very confident that this is a normal process and we will get through it,” said Sohi.