NEB extends decision on Trans Mountain expansion by 4 months

The deadline for reaching a decision on whether to approve the $ 5.4- billion Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion from Edmonton to the West Coast will be extended by nearly four months, the National Energy board said Thursday.

The NEB said it had implemented an “excluded period” from Sept. 17 to Jan. 8 to allow Trans Mountain to replace evidence in its submission that had been struck because the author had accepted a job with the NEB.

The delay also allows interveners and the board to review and to respond to the new information.

“We are now setting our 15- month legislated timeline for the recommendation report to end on the 20th of May, 2016,” said NEB spokeswoman Tara O’Donovan. It was previously Jan. 26.

It is the second excluded period on the application. Last year, the NEB declared a seven- month excluded period beginning in July to allow Trans Mountain to file additional studies related to a new preferred corridor through Burnaby Mountain near Vancouver.

In its decision Thursday, the board said the delay is “reasonable and fair,” because it is “somewhat longer than that sought by Trans Mountain and somewhat shorter than that requested by interveners.”

“The NEB is allowed to take the time necessary to review the project,” said O’Donovan. “Basically, the excluded period is a provision in the act that allows us to request additional information from the company if it’s needed.”

Steven Kelly, a consultant with IHS Global Canada, prepared the report in question for Kinder Morgan Canada, the pipeline builder. In July, federal Natural Resources Minister Greg Rickford announced Kelly had been appointed to a sevenyear term on the board starting Oct. 13.

In a response filed on Sept. 11, Trans Mountain stated Kelly’s evidence made up only 67 pages of the 15,000 pages in the application and could be replaced with new evidence by Friday, Sept. 25. It urged the NEB to deliver its decision by Feb. 15 in order to allow it to keep to its construction schedule if approved.

“Mr. Kelly’s evidence and other evidence fulfilled a requirement in the NEB’s filing manual requiring information to support the fact that the project had sufficient oil supply and markets to ensure it was needed,” the online response says.

“The facts ( are) contained in the other evidence — the strong commercial support for the project demonstrated by long- term contracts for 80 per cent of the expanded volume and the NEB’s approval of the toll ( fee) structure for those contracts.”

O’Donovan said the replacement evidence is expected to be delivered Friday. She pointed out Trans Mountain will be allowed to alter its final arguments, which it had already delivered, based on what emerges.

Trans Mountain spokesman Ali Hounsell said in an email Thursday the company is reviewing the new timeline and whether there are any implications for the project.

The excluded evidence led to postponing of oral arguments scheduled for Calgary in August and Burnaby, B. C. this month.

Trans Mountain said it had not previously been aware of Kelly’s appointment to the NEB, nor did it opposed a new round of intervener questions on the replacement evidence.

In August, 35 participants dropped out of the Trans Mountain review process, calling it “biased” and “unfair.”

Kinder Morgan plans to almost triple the capacity of the pipeline that runs from near Edmonton to a marine terminal in the Vancouver area, enabling shipments of Alberta crude to Asia.