West Coast pipeline deadline day: Carney, Smith to make announcement in Fort McMurray

It’s pipeline deadline day and Prime Minister Mark Carney and Premier Danielle Smith are set to make an announcement in the heartland of Alberta’s oil and gas industry.

The Prime Minister’s Office said the two will reveal the next step to accelerate a “major infrastructure project.”

The two are set to speak Thursday morning in Fort McMurray, where the Alberta government said they’ll be joined by Pembina Pipeline Corporation president and CEO Scott Burrows.

This story will be updated after the 9 a.m. MT news conference.

Oct. 1 marks Ottawa’s deadline to officially designate a proposed West Coast pipeline from Alberta to British Columbia’s south coast as a project of national interest.

Being designated is a regulatory step that would place the proposal within Ottawa’s accelerated major-projects framework — but is not final construction approval.

If that happens, the pipeline would be owned by Trans Mountain, the Alberta Petroleum Marketing Commission and Pembina Pipeline Corp.

Trans Mountain Corporation would be responsible for planning and construction, while Pembina Pipelines will act as a private sector partner.

It has a 10 per cent ownership stake in the construction, with an option to purchase an additional 10 per cent once the line is operational.

The pipeline is estimated to cost between $35.2 billion and $43.7 billion, according to the project submission package, and would run almost entirely along the same path as the current Trans Mountain Expansion pipeline (TMX).

The roughly 1,250-kilometre route would carry upwards of one million barrels of crude oil from Bruderheim, Alta. near Edmonton, to a port south of Vancouver near Delta, B.C., for shipment to international markets.

The proposed pipeline is a central component of an energy agreement between the federal and Alberta governments.

Oil and gas is Alberta’s biggest industry and global energy prices have a significant impact on provincial coffers, but the landlocked Prairie province has been hampered for decades by a lack of shipping capacity to get product to tidewater.

Smith has previously said Carney has acted constructively with Alberta in coming up with an Alberta-Ottawa energy agreement and working toward a new West Coast pipeline.

Carney has adjusted some policies to make the project more likely.

Bill C-39, the “Building Canada Strong Act,” proposes giving the federal government new powers to fast-track major infrastructure projects.

In August, Ottawa moved to list a West Coast pipeline as a national interest project. A notice published in the Canada Gazette on Aug. 1 sets a Sept. 18 deadline to submit comments on the national interest designation.

The proposed pipeline project was referred to the government’s major projects office, with the Alberta government listed as the proponent.

The government’s notice said Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc would work with the Alberta and B.C. governments on the project while consultations with Indigenous communities were underway.

Ottawa has moved several other large projects toward national interest designation already, including the Grays Bay road and port project in Nunavut, the Mackenzie Valley Highway in the Northwest Territories and the Nuclear Waste Management Organization’s deep geological repository in northern Ontario.

On Tuesday, Carney announced $1.2 billion in federal funding for ocean protections as the country moved toward decisions on a new pipeline and expansion of a major port in Metro Vancouver.

Carney has said the proposed pipeline would avoid “highly sensitive areas” and the tanker ban along B.C.’s north coast will remain in effect.

Carney has previously backed a proposed expansion of the Port of Vancouver’s Roberts Bank terminal, telling reporters during a visit to the facility in July that his government was looking to provide about $10 billion for the project, part of Ottawa’s effort to “grow our exports away from the United States.”

A report from TD Economics released this summer said a new West Coast pipeline would boost Canada’s oil exports by 20 per cent and more than double what currently goes overseas on tankers to Asia.