The cost to build the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion has jumped by 70 per cent to $12.6 billion from a three-year-old estimate of $7.4 billion.
President and CEO Ian Anderson told Canadian Press the company – owned by the federal government – has spent $2.5 billion to date, including the impact of delays and additional regulatory processes, leaving an additional $8.4 billion needed to complete the project, plus $1.7 billion of financial carrying costs.
He says the project is now expected to be in service by December 2022.
The estimate of $7.4 billion was made in 2017 by the previous owner, Houston-based Kinder Morgan, Inc., which sold the expansion project and the existing pipeline to the federal government in 2018 for $4.5 billion.
Opponents have attacked the greenhouse gas emission and oil spill risks of the pipeline project but they’ve also charged it will be a money-loser with unproved markets in Asia that will fail financially and leave the public holding the bag.
(Canadian Press / Financial Post)
