Building the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion should resume by early September and carry Alberta oil to the west coast by mid-2022, the company’s CEO said Wednesday.
Saying the company is “chomping at the bit to get at it,” Ian Anderson said if all goes to plan, work should pick up where it left off late last summer with bitumen flowing through it three years later.
“We’re confident the company and project will meet every standard, every regulation, every test,” he told reporters less than a day after the federal Liberal government gave its second green light to the initiative.
“That process could run for weeks to months but we expect that process to be on the shorter end.”
The undertaking will still require a licence to proceed from the National Energy Board, he said, and permits to return the project’s status back to where it was when the Federal Court of Appeal ruled last August more work was needed in ensuring marine protection and Indigenous consultation.
“We anticipate the National Energy Board will give us direction on that,” said Anderson.
He noted the threat of further legal action against the project — which was purchased by the federal government for $4.5 billion last year — but said they’ll address that when it becomes clearer.
And demands by local communities at two spots along the 1,150-km route, including one at the Coldwater First Nation which suffered from a pipeline leak, that it alter its path, will be dealt with through consultations, said Anderson.
“Our schedule, I don’t think, will be at risk from those determinations,” he said.
The first resumption of work should begin in stretches between Jasper and Edmonton and at the Burnaby terminal, site of the most determined protests against the project last year, said Anderson.
He’s confident, he said, of the company’s own security measures and also noted a court injunction stands in “protecting us from any interference.”
The province of B.C. vowed to renew its legal challenges against the pipeline twinning, which would bring an additional 890,000 barrels per day of oil from Edmonton to Burnaby.
Some First Nations in Alberta and B.C. have also said they’d erect legal obstacles in the pipeline expansion’s path.
But Anderson said he’s heartened by shippers operating from the B.C. end who have refused to abandon the project despite the delay.
“Our shippers remain committed to this project, they’ve stood beside us through this entire process for many years,” he said.
The pipeline expansion’s $7.4 billion price tag has increased, said Anderson, though by how much isn’t yet clear.
“We all know time is money, delays are going to push up costs,” he said.
The work will ultimately employ up to 5,000 to 6,000 workers, said Anderson.
on Twitter: @BillKaufmannjrn
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