Deal by Kinder Morgan Canada to sell Trans Mountain welcomed with misgivings
CALGARY — Canada’s energy industry welcomed news Tuesday that the Trans Mountain expansion pipeline is more likely to be built, but expressed grave misgivings over Ottawa’s decision to buy the project for $4.5 billion in order to achieve that goal.
Canada needs infrastructure like that designed to triple Trans Mountain’s capacity to move crude oil and refined products from the Alberta oilsands and Edmonton refining complex to the West Coast, said Chris Bloomer, CEO of the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association.
But he said the association is “deeply concerned” that the government felt it had to purchase the project to get it built. Ottawa’s move comes 18 politically fraught months after it had been approved.
“Something had to happen,” Bloomer said of delays blamed on opposition by British Columbia’s provincial government, municipalities, Indigenous groups and individual protesters.