Finance Minister Bill Morneau is set to announce details today of a plan to ensure construction of the contentious Trans Mountain pipeline expansion goes ahead this summer.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is holding a cabinet meeting in Ottawa this morning and ministers will get a full briefing on the plan. Morneau and Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr will hold a news conference at 8:45 a.m. ET at the National Press Theatre, and CBCNews.ca will carry it live.
Kinder Morgan will also hold a teleconference this morning.
CBC News reported Monday that Morneau has reached an agreement in principle with Kinder Morgan, the company behind the project.
This morning, the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada announced a trading halt for Kinder Morgan Canada Limited because of “pending news.” The IIROC can impose a temporary suspension of trading in a security of a publicly listed company to ensure “a fair and orderly market.”
The government had looked at three options for moving the project forward:
- Compensating Kinder Morgan — or any other company — for financial losses caused by British Columbia’s attempts to block the project.
- The federal government buys, builds and then sells the expansion once the work is complete.
- The federal government buys the project from Kinder Morgan, then puts it on the market for investors willing to pick up the project and build it themselves.
Morneau’s Tuesday announcement comes just two days before a deadline set by Kinder Morgan, which had said it needed clarity on a path forward for the $7.4-billion project by May 31 or it would walk away from construction.
The twinning of the 1,150 kilometre-long Trans Mountain pipeline will nearly triple its capacity to an estimated 890,000 barrels a day and increase traffic off B.C.s coast from approximately five tankers to 34 tankers a month. (CBC News)
The original Trans Mountain pipeline was built in 1953. The expansion would be a twinning of the existing 1,150-kilometre pipeline between Strathcona County (near Edmonton), Alberta and Burnaby, BC. It would add 980 kilometres of new pipeline and increase capacity from 300,000 barrels a day to 890,000 barrels a day.
According to the company’s website, the construction and the first 20 years of expanded operations would mean a combined government revenue of $46.7 billion, with $5.7 billion for B.C., $19.4 billion for Alberta and $21.6 billion for the rest of Canada.