Trans Mountain pipeline project clears another major hurdle toward completion

The Canada Energy Regulator has given an 11th-hour green light to the over-budget, federally-owned Trans Mountain pipeline, currently under construction in Western Canada.

In a ruling posted to its website late Friday, the regulator gave its blessing to the pipeline giant to change its routing methodology in a 2.3-kilometre stretch of construction in B.C.’s Fraser Valley.

Trans Mountain’s engineers had initially applied to the regulator to dig a 36-inch pipe through a stretch of mountainous terrain near Hope, B.C. However, the company later discovered that hard rock formations would make boring through a pipe that wide very challenging.

Last fall, the company applied to the regulator to reduce the pipe size to 30 inches, a move its engineers said would not impede the flow of oil gushing through the pipeline.

The regulator, for its part, initially rejected that application, citing unconvincing evidence from the company that the alteration would ensure the integrity of the pipe and the oil flowing through it.

“The Commission of the Canada Energy Regulator has determined that Trans Mountain did not adequately address concerns about pipeline integrity and related environmental protection impacts,” the regulator cited in its reasons for rejecting the application.

This prompted Trans Mountain to issue a particularly stern warning – that refusing to grant it permission to drill a smaller pipe would lead to a “catastrophic” two-year delay and billions of losses as a result.

On Friday, Trans Mountain’s lawyer, Sander Duncanson, appeared at a hearing before the Canadian Energy Regulator in Calgary to argue that the company had taken all the necessary steps to ensure that the pipe size variance would be safe and built to stringent