Trans Mountain pipeline
Based on Wikipedia: Trans Mountain pipeline
In May 2024, after twelve years and thirty-four billion Canadian dollars, a pipeline finally started pumping oil. That's not a typo. Thirty-four billion dollars. To put that in perspective, you could build roughly seventeen brand-new hospitals, fund a small country's education system for a generation, or purchase a fleet of fighter jets. Instead, Canada spent it on a tube running from Edmonton to the Pacific coast.
This is the story of the Trans Mountain Pipeline—a project that began as a Cold War strategic asset, became a political football, and ended up as the most expensive infrastructure project in Canadian history.
Born from War Anxiety
The Trans Mountain Pipeline's origin story begins in 1947, when workers struck oil near Leduc, Alberta. This discovery transformed Alberta from a sleepy agricultural province into an energy powerhouse almost overnight. But finding oil is only half the battle. You have to get it somewhere people can actually use it.
Enter the Trans Mountain Pipeline Company, created in March 1951 through a special act of Parliament. What made this project move unusually fast—from conception to completion in just over a year—was fear. The Korean War was heating up, and military planners on both sides of the US-Canada border worried about oil tankers being vulnerable to attack along the Pacific coast. A pipeline buried underground seemed like a much safer bet than ships floating in the open ocean.
Construction began in February 1952. By October, workers had welded the final section into place near Aldergrove, British Columbia. The entire 1,150-kilometer pipeline—roughly the distance from Boston to Charlotte—was built in eight months. Canadian Bechtel Limited handled the engineering and construction, with ownership split between Bechtel and Standard Oil.
By August 1953, crude oil from Edmonton was flowing to refineries in Vancouver and the Pacific Northwest. The price tag? Ninety-three million dollars, which sounds modest today but represented a significant investment in 1950s currency.
From One Product to Many
For its first thirty years, the Trans Mountain Pipeline did exactly one thing: move crude oil from Alberta to the coast. Simple. Efficient. Boring.
Then, in 1983, the company started experimenting with something called batch shipping—sending different products through the same pipe at different times, like running different colored paints through a garden hose, one after another. By 1985, refined products were regularly traveling 820 kilometers from Edmonton to Kamloops. By 1993, they'd extended this to Vancouver.
A 1993 industry report noted something remarkable: the Trans Mountain Pipeline was the only major system in the world carrying both crude oil and refined petroleum products through a single pipeline. By 1998, the variety of products moving through the line had expanded dramatically—jet fuel, multiple grades of gasoline, various diesel formulations, chemical additives, and crude oil ranging from light sweet to heavy.
This versatility had an unexpected consequence. Refineries in British Columbia started closing.
Why maintain expensive refining operations in Vancouver when you could ship finished gasoline directly from Edmonton? Shell, Petro-Canada, and Imperial Oil all shuttered their BC refineries in the 1990s and expanded their Alberta operations instead. The former refineries along the pipeline route became storage and distribution terminals—way stations rather than manufacturing plants.
The Expansion Dream
By the 2000s, demand for pipeline capacity was outstripping supply. In 2004, Kinder Morgan—a Houston-based pipeline company that had acquired Trans Mountain—added a second pipeline running parallel to a portion of the original route between Hinton, Alberta and Hargreaves, British Columbia. This modest expansion increased capacity by about fifteen percent.
But the real ambitions were much grander.
On June 18, 2013, Kinder Morgan filed an application to nearly triple the pipeline's capacity. The Trans Mountain Expansion Project—often called TMX—would add 980 kilometers of new pipe, twelve new pumping stations, and boost the system from 300,000 to 890,000 barrels per day. The initial cost estimate? 6.8 billion dollars.
Remember that number. It's going to grow.
The expansion had powerful supporters. BP Canada, Canadian Natural Resources, Suncor, Imperial Oil, Husky Energy, and nearly a dozen other major petroleum companies lined up behind the project. These weren't just cheerleaders—they were customers who had committed to shipping their product through the expanded pipeline.
The logic was straightforward. Canada sits on the world's third-largest proven oil reserves, but most of it is landlocked in Alberta. The only practical export route runs south to the United States, which means Canadian producers are captive to American buyers. Getting oil to the Pacific coast would open up Asian markets, diversify the customer base, and—crucially—command better prices.
Western Canadian Select, the benchmark for Alberta's heavy crude, typically sold at a discount of about seventeen dollars per barrel compared to West Texas Intermediate, the American benchmark. By fall 2018, that discount had ballooned to fifty dollars. Alberta crude briefly sold for less than fourteen dollars a barrel while American oil fetched over sixty. The difference represented billions of dollars in lost revenue.
The Opposition Mobilizes
If there was one thing opponents and supporters agreed on, it was that the Trans Mountain Expansion mattered. A lot.
Environmentalists saw the project as a catastrophe waiting to happen. The expansion would increase tanker traffic through Burrard Inlet—the narrow waterway leading to Vancouver's harbor—by a factor of seven. These aren't small vessels. We're talking about massive oil tankers navigating through a channel of shallow water squeezed between mountainous shorelines, with Vancouver's downtown skyline visible from the deck.
The risk calculation seemed stark. More ships carrying more oil through tighter spaces equals higher probability of spills. And the track record wasn't reassuring.
Since 1961, the Trans Mountain Pipeline has reported approximately eighty-four spills to federal regulators. Most were small and contained within pumping stations. But some were not. In 2005, a ruptured pipeline near Abbotsford dumped 210 cubic meters of crude oil. In 2007, a contractor in Burnaby accidentally punctured the line, spraying crude oil across eleven houses and forcing hundreds of residents to evacuate. Cleanup took more than a year. Oil flowed through storm sewers into Burrard Inlet before crews contained it.
First Nations communities along the route raised a different set of concerns. The pipeline crosses unceded Indigenous territory—land that was never surrendered through treaty. Many nations argued they hadn't been adequately consulted about the project, as required by both Canadian law and international Indigenous rights frameworks. The Tsleil-Waututh Nation, whose traditional territory includes Burrard Inlet, became particularly vocal opponents.
The Federal Government Buys a Pipeline
By 2018, the Trans Mountain Expansion was drowning in legal challenges, regulatory hurdles, and political opposition. The BC government had announced it wouldn't support the project. Indigenous groups were filing lawsuits. Environmental organizations were staging protests. Kinder Morgan executives started hinting that they might walk away entirely.
This presented the federal government with an uncomfortable choice.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had approved the expansion in 2016, making it a test of whether major resource projects could still get built in Canada. Walking away would suggest the answer was no—a signal that might discourage future investment in Canadian infrastructure. But forcing the project through over fierce opposition would alienate environmental voters and Indigenous communities whose support the government actively courted.
The solution? Buy the whole thing.
On August 31, 2018, the Government of Canada purchased the Trans Mountain Pipeline from Kinder Morgan for 4.5 billion dollars. A new Crown corporation—the Trans Mountain Corporation—was created to own and operate the system. The Canadian government was now in the pipeline business.
This was, to put it mildly, unusual. Crown corporations typically operate in sectors with natural monopoly characteristics—utilities, postal services, broadcasting. Running an oil pipeline wasn't exactly in the federal government's wheelhouse. Critics accused the Trudeau government of nationalizing a private company to rescue a failing project. Supporters argued it was the only way to ensure the expansion actually happened.
Costs Spiral Out of Control
When the government bought Trans Mountain, the estimated cost to complete the expansion was about 7.4 billion dollars. Add the 4.5 billion purchase price, and the total investment would be roughly twelve billion.
Then the bills started coming in.
By February 2020, the estimate had climbed to 12.6 billion just for construction—nearly double the original projection. Trans Mountain Corporation blamed rising costs for labor, steel, and land. Then came COVID-19, which disrupted supply chains and construction schedules worldwide.
By February 2022, the estimate jumped again to 21.4 billion dollars—a seventy percent increase in just two years.
By March 2023, it hit 30.9 billion.
When the pipeline finally began operations in May 2024, the final tally exceeded 34 billion Canadian dollars. That's five times the original estimate. To fund the overruns, the Trans Mountain Corporation was restructured as a non-agent Crown corporation, allowing it to borrow from private lenders rather than relying solely on government financing.
For context, thirty-four billion dollars is more than Canada spends annually on its entire military. It's roughly what the country budgets each year for all federal infrastructure investments combined. It's enough to provide clean drinking water to every Indigenous community currently under a boil-water advisory—with enough left over to do it again several times.
Why Building Things Is So Hard
The Trans Mountain saga illustrates something important about infrastructure in wealthy democracies: it has become extraordinarily difficult and expensive to build almost anything.
Consider the timeline. The original Trans Mountain Pipeline was proposed, approved, constructed, and operational in about two years during the early 1950s. The expansion project was first proposed in 2013 and didn't begin operations until 2024—eleven years later. And most of that time wasn't spent actually building anything. It was spent navigating regulatory processes, fighting legal battles, and managing political opposition.
This isn't unique to Canada or to pipelines. Similar dynamics afflict major infrastructure projects throughout North America, Europe, and other developed regions. Highway expansions, transit systems, power plants, wind farms—all face escalating timelines and costs. Scholars have coined terms like "vetocracy" to describe political systems where multiple actors can block projects but few can actually approve them.
The Trans Mountain expansion accumulated 157 binding conditions from regulators addressing environmental, Indigenous, and safety concerns. Seven separate legal challenges wound through the courts. Three provinces had conflicting interests. Dozens of municipalities weighed in. Hundreds of Indigenous communities along the route had consultation rights. Environmental groups organized sustained opposition campaigns.
Each of these stakeholders had legitimate concerns. Environmental protection matters. Indigenous rights matter. Democratic participation matters. The question is whether the cumulative effect of all these checks has made it nearly impossible to build major infrastructure at reasonable cost—including infrastructure that might actually address climate change, like electrical transmission lines or renewable energy projects.
The Economics of Pipeline Politics
Lost in the political drama was a more fundamental question: does the Trans Mountain Expansion even make economic sense?
A 2014 study by Simon Fraser University argued that Kinder Morgan had substantially overestimated the project's economic benefits. Critics pointed out that global oil demand might peak within decades as electric vehicles proliferate and climate policies tighten. Spending billions on oil export infrastructure seemed like a dubious bet on a declining industry.
Supporters countered that the world still runs on oil—and will for decades to come, regardless of what happens with electric vehicles. Even aggressive climate scenarios project significant oil demand through mid-century. And Canadian producers were losing billions annually because they couldn't access global markets. The price differential between Alberta crude and international benchmarks represented real money that could fund government services, pay workers, and support the transition to cleaner energy.
There's also the uncomfortable reality that if Canadian oil doesn't reach global markets, someone else's oil will. The world's appetite for petroleum doesn't disappear because Canada refuses to build pipelines. It just gets satisfied by suppliers with weaker environmental standards and human rights records.
Whether the expansion will ever pay for itself remains uncertain. The thirty-four billion dollar price tag requires shipping enormous volumes of oil over many years to recoup. If oil demand falls faster than expected, or if pipeline capacity outstrips production, the investment could end up stranded—an expensive monument to misjudged bets about the energy future.
What Actually Changed
On May 1, 2024, the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion officially began operations. Capacity jumped from 300,000 to 890,000 barrels per day—nearly tripling the amount of oil that can flow from Alberta to the Pacific coast.
For Alberta, this represented a political and economic victory. The province had fought for decades to escape its dependence on the American market. Now, for the first time, significant volumes of Canadian crude could reach Asian buyers. The price discount that had cost producers billions should narrow, boosting revenues for both companies and governments.
For British Columbia, the calculations were more complicated. The province hosts the pipeline's terminus and bears most of the environmental risk, but captures relatively little of the economic benefit. The oil comes from Alberta. The jobs are mostly in Alberta. The royalties flow to Alberta. What BC gets is increased tanker traffic through its coastal waters and a larger share of responsibility if something goes wrong.
For the federal government, the project became a symbol of—well, it depends who you ask. Supporters saw it as proof that Canada can still build major infrastructure when it really commits. Critics saw a cautionary tale about cost overruns, construction delays, and the perils of government involvement in commercial projects.
The Indigenous communities along the route emerged with mixed outcomes. Some nations signed benefit agreements and supported the project. Others remained opposed and felt their concerns were ultimately overridden despite years of advocacy. A Supreme Court decision in July 2020 rejected the final round of legal challenges, closing the judicial avenue for opposition.
The Broader Pattern
Trans Mountain isn't just a story about one pipeline. It's a window into how modern democracies struggle with infrastructure, environmental trade-offs, and Indigenous reconciliation.
The project exposed genuine tensions that don't have easy answers. Climate change is real and requires reducing fossil fuel consumption—but oil and gas still power the global economy and fund government services. Indigenous rights deserve respect—but Indigenous communities themselves are divided, with some supporting resource development for economic reasons and others opposing it for cultural and environmental ones. Local communities deserve a voice in projects that affect them—but local vetoes can hold national priorities hostage.
These aren't problems that can be solved by better project management or smarter politics. They're fundamental tensions in democratic societies trying to balance multiple legitimate values that sometimes conflict.
What the Trans Mountain experience suggests is that the current balance may not be sustainable. Eleven-year timelines and 500-percent cost overruns make infrastructure nearly impossible to finance and build. If the same dynamics apply to renewable energy projects—and they often do—then addressing climate change becomes exponentially harder. The very regulatory structures designed to protect the environment may end up preventing the clean energy transition.
There are no villains in this story. Environmental advocates fought for legitimate concerns about spills and climate impact. Indigenous groups asserted rights that had been ignored for too long. Regulators tried to balance competing demands. Companies sought reasonable returns on investment. Government officials attempted to serve multiple constituencies with contradictory interests.
Everyone acted rationally within their own framework. The collective result was a project that cost five times its original estimate and took more than a decade to build. Whether that represents the system working—forcing thorough review and genuine consultation—or the system failing—making productive investment nearly impossible—depends on what you value most.
The oil is flowing now. Tankers are loading at the Westridge Marine Terminal in Burnaby, navigating the narrow waters of Burrard Inlet, and heading out to sea. Alberta producers are selling to Asia. The Canadian government is hoping to eventually sell the pipeline and recover some of its enormous investment.
Was it worth it? Ask again in twenty years, when we'll know whether oil demand collapsed or persisted, whether a tanker spilled or didn't, whether the pipeline paid for itself or became a stranded asset. For now, thirty-four billion dollars worth of steel pipe runs from the prairies to the Pacific, carrying Canadian crude to global markets—a monument to either ambition or folly, depending on how the future unfolds.