Work on the long-delayed, hotly debated Keystone XL project will re-start as early as next month, TC Energy Corp. said in a court filing Tuesday.
According to the Financial Post, the Calgary-based pipeline giant filed a status report in the United States District Court of Montana on Tuesday that outlined “presently planned work for 2020 involving both pre-construction activities and construction of the pipeline.”
The company has been looking to build the 830,000-barrels-per-day pipeline – which was rejected by former U.S. president Barack Obama then approved by President Donald Trump – for more than 10 years. The company indicated in the court filing that it would build the 1.2-mile border crossing between Canada and the U.S. in April.
The filing outlines the company’s plans to mobilize heavy construction equipment to “worker camps and pipeline storage yards in Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska” in February, followed by mowing and other site clearing activities in March. By April, the company intends to move pipes by trains and trucks into storage yards.
Construction on pumping stations for the pipeline will begin in June, along with a portion of the pipeline through Nebraska. In Montana and South Dakota, the company expects to begin full construction work in April.
“Having successfully reached several key milestones on the project, today we filed a status report with Judge Morris in Montana outlining our plan to commence pre-construction activities and pipeline construction this spring in Canada and parts of the U.S. as we continue to advance this vital energy infrastructure project,” TC Energy spokesperson Terry Cunha said in an email to Financial Post.
The company had previously indicated that work on Keystone XL, which is expected to cost $8 billion, would begin in 2020 and carry on through 2021 but Tuesday’s court filing provides the first indication of when exactly work would begin.
The company was forced to stop work as a result of an unfavourable court decision in 2018 and work camps along the pipeline route in the U.S. emptied.
(Financial Post)
