The Canadian government has ruled on three oil pipeline projects developed by Enbridge and Kinder Morgan.
The Canadian government has approved the controversial Trans Mountain expansion project, stretching from Edmonton, Alberta, to Burnaby, British Columbia. The C$6.8bn (US$5.1bn) expansion project aims at increasing the transportation capacity from approximately 300,000 bbl/d to 890,000 bbl/d by twinning the existing light crude oil and refined product pipeline. In January 2016, the government of British Columbia opposed Kinder Morgan's plans to expand the Trans Mountain crude oil pipeline, considering that Kinder Morgan had not provided an adequate plan to prevent or respond to an oil spill and failed to meet any of the five conditions it had laid out in 2012. In April 2016, the NEB imposed 157 conditions on the project.
The Canadian government has also approved the Line 3 project. Enbridge plans to invest C$7.5bn (US$5.6bn) to replace Line 3, an existing 1,660 km long crude oil pipeline originally installed in the 1960s, that extends from Edmonton, Alberta (Canada) to Superior, Wisconsin (United States). The replacement is expected to increase the transport capacity by 370,000 bbl/d, from the current 390,000 bbl/d to 760,000 bbl/d of light, medium and heavy crude. The project received approval from the Canadian energy regulator National Energy Board (NEB) in April 2016, though imposing 89 conditions on environmental standards and consultation with landowners and First Nations to monitor the construction. The project has been delayed from 2017 to 2019. Enbridge will have to submit a further proposal about how it plans to decommission the existing pipeline.
As expected, the government has vetoed the Northern Gateway pipeline project, a 1,177-km twin pipeline system between Bruderheim (Alberta) and Kitimat (British Columbia) that also included a marine terminal in Kitimat. The pipeline would transport 525,000 bbl/d of crude oil for export and import 193,000 bbl/d of condensate. Investment was estimated at C$7.9bn (US$5.9bn). Enbridge had secured approval from Canadian energy regulators in late 2013 and from the federal government in June 2014. However, the project still aroused opposition from environmentalist groups and aboriginal communities and the Federal Court of Appeal of Canada overturned the federal approval in April 2016.