WEST COAST PIPELINE IMPASSE
—A SOLUTION
Mike Priaro, P. Eng.
First uploaded May 9, 2019
Justin Trudeau may end up giving, or selling at a much reduced price to be paid back from revenue, the existing Trans Mountain pipeline to First Nations.
Trans Mountain Pipeline with Product Destinations
That would relieve him and the federal Liberal Party of the controversial project and provide a measure of real reconciliation, for a change, to First Nations by providing them with significant opportunities for economic betterment.
The Indian Resource Council (IRC), which represents 134 First Nations, has said it is looking to present a proposal to Ottawa to acquire the Trans Mountain pipeline project.
However, those First Nations, as well as Canadian taxpayers, need to be aware that the Trans Mountain pipeline comes with a $4.5-billion liability to pay back its cost to taxpayers, a $9.3 billion liability to construct the proposed expansion, and a $6-billion-plus liability to replace the existing 66-year-old pipeline, which is old for an oil pipeline, plus interest on loans to build the expansion until it is operational and generating profit.
A far better option is to not build the Trans Mountain expansion at all – and use most of the capacity of the existing pipeline to ship Canadian fuels and other refined products to B.C.’s Lower Mainland to displace imports of expensive fuels. B.C.’s Lower Mainland and Islands routinely have the highest fuel prices in Canada. With most of the dilbit and sour heavy crudes that contain sulphur and other contaminants removed, transporting more fuels and other refined products should extend the life of the existing pipeline.
Use the $9.3 billion-plus instead to invest in and help pay for the construction of the $16-billion First Nations-led Eagle Spirit energy corridor which will contain, along with potential natural gas and natural gas liquids (NGLs) pipelines, a two-million bbl/day oil pipeline.
Eagle Spirit, with almost four times the capacity of the proposed Trans Mountain expansion, and as much capacity as the much-delayed Keystone XL, ill-fated Northern Gateway and ill-conceived Trans Mountain expansion combined, will provide shippers with pipeline tariffs that are half as much as the much-lower capacity Trans Mountain expansion could ever provide.
Transport most of the crude that would have flowed down an expanded Trans Mountain pipeline instead down the Eagle Spirit pipeline to the safest port on Canada’s Pacific Coast at Port Simpson near Prince Rupert. This will of course require, at a minimum, an amendment to Bill C-48, Justin Trudeau’s Oil Tanker Moratorium Act currently before the Senate, which seeks to ban loading oil tankers off B.C.’s north coast.
Supply the U.S. Puget Sound refineries with crude by tanker in exactly the same way they are currently receiving crude from Alaska and from other foreign sources, supplemented with tankers from Prince Rupert using the existing Valdez AK to Puget Sound WA sea route. Since 1985, Alaska-to-Washington tankers have observed a “voluntary exclusion zone” that steers them into the high seas well clear of Haida Gwaii and the west coast of Vancouver Island.
About 100,000 bbl/d of existing Trans Mountain pipeline capacity not required to fully supply the Lower Mainland market of about 200,000 bbl/d with Canadian fuels and other refined products could still reach Puget Sound refineries using the existing Trans Mountain pipeline’s Puget Sound extension from Sumas B.C. – relieving most of the densely-populated Lower Mainland and most of the high-risk, high-liability Salish Sea of any and all crude shipments by pipeline or tanker.
This is a win-win for everyone – including British Columbians in the Lower Mainland and Islands, First Nations, the Salish Sea, the people of the Prince Rupert area, all Albertans, and the oil and gas industry in Alberta, British Columbia and Saskatchewan– not to mention the Liberal Party of Canada.
Mike Priaro, P. Eng.
Calgary
403-281-2156
