With construction underway on the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion (TMX), many Canadians are seeking greater transparency about the delays and rising costs associated with this publicly-funded pipeline and tanker project.
West Coast Environmental Law analyzed hundreds of regulatory documents and construction reports and projected that the Trans Mountain pipeline is delayed into 2023, adding millions to the cost.
This report compiles and analyzes various Trans Mountain documents, including regulatory filings, sworn affidavits and Trans Mountain’s own website to estimate and project the current state of delays to construction and their potential cost implications. Our analysis found evidence of delays in each of the seven segments (or spreads) of the project, ranging from two to 23 months.
Without a complete and detailed updated project timeline, there are serious questions about how Trans Mountain is maintaining its proposed in-service date of December 2022, or if it can adapt its construction schedule as numerous critical construction windows continue to be missed. West Coast recommends that the next federal government immediately provide an updated, detailed, and transparent cost analysis and revised schedule for the Trans Mountain expansion project, taking into account the climate costs of the increased fossil fuel consumption facilitated by this expansion.