Trudeau approves pipeline
The oil pipeline that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government approved on Tuesday is slated to start shipping crude as early as 2022 and cost more than C$7.4 billion after legal delays hampered the construction process. The Trans Mountain expansion, which would carry 590,000 more barrels of crude from Alberta’s oil sands to a port in Vancouver, was delayed for eight months as the federal government conducted additional environmental reviews and consultations with indigenous groups. That setback added more than a year to the project’s timeline as windows for sensitive steps such as work around fisheries were missed, Trans Mountain Chief Executive Officer Ian Anderson said on a conference call.“We all know that time is money and delays are going to push up costs,” Anderson said, without providing more specific estimates. The 2022 target assumes that “all goes well” on the regulatory and construction fronts and that work begins in September of this year, Anderson said.