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The Trans Mountain expansion project is considered critical infrastructure for landlocked oil producers in Alberta keen to expand their customer base beyond the United States. The 590,000-barrels-per-day expansion would raise the pipeline’s capacity to 890,000-bpd, enabling more shipments to Asia’s energy-hungry markets.

In June, the Financial Post reported that large stockpiles of green-coated pipelines have been amassed at yards in the B.C. towns of Vavenby, Hope and Kamloops, and preparatory work has been ongoing in Valemount.

Crews have also been working for months at the Westridge marine terminal in Burnaby, B.C. where oil from the Trans Mountain pipeline will eventually be loaded onto ships for export.

“We have received more than half of the pipe needed for construction and are staging it at storage yards along the route,” the company had told the Financial Post in an email in November, adding that the 2,200 workers had already been hired. “Our contractors have been ordering and receiving equipment, surveying and staking and doing everything possible to be ready to start construction in the other areas as soon as possible.”

Photo by Dennis Owen/Reuters files

Over 90 per cent of Canada’s oil exports — oil and gas is the country’s largest export category — are currently shipped to the United States, with the majority of those exports going to the U.S. Midwest refining markets. The Trans Mountain pipeline offers much-needed diversification for the industry.