Pathways Alliance looks on with dismay as Trans Mountain’s latest hurdles
The group behind a proposed carbon capture and storage network for Alberta’s oil sands is watching with dismay as the latest regulatory hurdles tied to the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion.
The Pathways Alliance, a consortium of Canada’s largest oil sands companies, wants its $16.5 billion carbon pipeline and underground storage facility project up and running in northern Alberta. by 2030.
The project is critical to the oil sands industry’s commitment to achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions from production by 2050.
But Pathways President Kendall Dilling says the latest challenges affecting the Trans Mountain pipeline project show how difficult it is to get major infrastructure projects across the finish line in this country.
The Crown corporation that owns Trans Mountain is facing new construction problems in British Columbia, and a British Columbia First Nation is opposing the company’s efforts to change the pipeline route.
The federally owned Trans Mountain project was supposed to come online early next year, but it may not be ready until December 2024.
The Pathways Alliance has just begun formal consultations with Indigenous groups for its own project, which Dilling says is at a “critical juncture” if it is to have any chance of being realized by 2030.
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